Review: The Christmas Spirits on Tradd Street by Karen White

With The Christmas Spirits on Tradd Street, the sixth book in the Tradd Street series which can be read as standalones, Karen White has again brought us a new and compelling mystery. Full of history and details of the American Revolution, White continues her streak of entertaining, well-paced, and expertly told stories of the town of Charleston.

Picking up right where The Guests on South Battery left off, Melanie Trenholm and the ghosts she communicates with in her historic home are involved in a new mystery related to the excavation of the old cistern in her garden. While she had hoped this would be finished before preparations began for Christmas, it’s still ongoing, and there still seem to be ghosts guarding…something. The cistern might instead be hiding secrets that are not of the paranormal variety, but instead a treasure that is very, very real.

As always, White’s characters are superbly written, though not always entirely likeable. Many readers (like myself) have begun to get a bit frustrated with Melanie and her seeming inability to mature or grow (it seems like several of her problems wouldn’t even be “problems” if she could grow up just a bit), but the various relationships between characters are always enjoyable.

White’s atmospheric writing is also top-notch. Whether describing something real-world and banal, or something truly super-natural, White has a talent for letting the reader see, hear, and feel so much of the world that Melanie lives in. Even when finding one’s self frustrated with one character or another, White’s writing can always pull the reader in, and time after time capture them into the world of the house on Tradd Street.

While the actual mystery in this novel starts out perhaps a bit convoluted, it is handled deftly and in the end wraps up in a satisfying way, while also providing hints at a future mystery. It provided a nice balance with Melanie and Jack and their personal lives.

My only genuine criticism of The Christmas Spirits on Tradd Street, and perhaps with the series overall, is that Melanie and Jack are now parents of toddlers, and it becomes frustrating as a reader to still see their relationship seem to hinge on the tiniest things. They need to grow as a couple (and as parents) and hopefully we will stop seeing their relationship as this delicate little thing that whose fragility is used to move the plot forward.

Between the buildup in this book for the next mystery, and the cliff-hanger ending that we are left with, book number 7 in this series should be a must-read!

The Christmas Spirits on Tradd Street is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.

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Synopsis | Goodreads

Review: Beneath the Keep by Erika Johansen

The Christmas spirit is overtaking Tradd Street with a vengeance in this festive new novel in the New York Times bestselling series by Karen White.

Melanie Trenholm should be anticipating Christmas with nothing but joy–after all, it’s only the second Christmas she and her husband, Jack, will celebrate with their twin babies. But the ongoing excavation of the centuries-old cistern in the garden of her historic Tradd Street home has been a huge millstone, both financially and aesthetically. Local students are thrilled by the possibility of unearthing more Colonial-era artifacts at the cistern, but Melanie is concerned by the ghosts connected to the cistern that have suddenly invaded her life and her house–and at least one of them is definitely not filled with holiday cheer….

And these relics aren’t the only precious artifacts for which people are searching. A past adversary is convinced that there is a long-lost Revolutionary War treasure buried somewhere on the property that Melanie inherited–untold riches rumored to be brought over from France by the Marquis de Lafayette himself and intended to help the Colonial war effort. It’s a treasure literally fit for a king, and there have been whispers throughout history that many have already killed–and died–for it. And now someone will stop at nothing to possess it–even if it means destroying everything Melanie and Jack hold dear.