Karma Marx is a woman who exorcises haunted houses, sending troublesome spirits and entites to the ever after (only if they want, she does have a soft spot for them, so a few have ended up at home). Her cheating husband, Spider, has agreed to a divorce, only if she exorcises one last house for him.

Adam Diresinger, the houses previous owner, is quite unhappy with all this, using his poltergeist powers he seals the house trapping all the people inside it. When Spider turns up dead she's faced with a locked-house mystery, and a lot of suspects, including herself!

It's light fun. I enjoyed it. There were moments that jarred but overall it was quite a fun read. ( )

Karma is a 1/2 polter(geist) who somehow ended up married to a major sleazebag named Spider. Karma has the ability to "clean" houses of unwanted entities and Spider has used to for just that in conjunction with his real estate business. Finally sick of his evil ways, Karma makes a deal to clean one more house in exchange for a divorce. But Adam, the powerful polter who claims to still own the house, has other ideas and seals the house with Karma and an aray of interesting characters inside. When Spider ends up dead we find ourselves in the ultimate locked room, er house, mystery.

I like this much more than I thought I would. I found the world she created to be quite good. The characters were fun and interesting. The writing keeps you going and gets you past the few bumps in the story. I am looking forward to future adventures with Karma and Co. ( )

Ghost of a Chance by Kate Marsh was entertaining. Karma Marx agrees to exorcise the spirits of her husband's latest real estate endeavor in exchange for a divorce. There's more to the house than Karma's husband lets on. When Karma goes to "clean" it, the owner locks all involved in, and Karma's husband ends up dead.

You really need to suspend disbelief for this tale. Once that's accomplished though, it's an entertaining read. The locked house senario limits the number of characters involved. The author should have been able to really explore the characters thoroughly, but she never seemed to delve too deeply. The central part of the story seemed to get stuck, going round and round as to who the killer is. Here the author does a disservice to the reader. Told in the first person, we should really have seen all that goes on with that character, but a big chunk is missing. I realize it was necessary to preserve the mystery, but it was really a let down at the end. Still, I find that I would like to know more of where Karma goes from here. ( )

I am not familar with Katie MacAlister's novels so the lack of a frame of reference left me a bit confused. But you soon get the gist of the backstory. The other reviewers have provided an excellent description of the book so I won't repeat it here.

The novel appears to be the start of a new series. It's a bit rough and needs a bit more body (no pun intended), but I think it could work. Some of the Otherworld characters were quite funny. I even looked forward to the imps. Because sometimes you have someone/something that is generally nice but they keep getting in the way and you wish you could set them aside (Karma puts the imps in a box repeatedly but they keep escaping).

I found it to be a fun, quick read and I look forward to seeing how the author improves this story line. ( )

Ok, first I should say that "Ghost of a Chance" is by Katie Macalister writing as Kate Marsh. I'm a fan of Macalister's Aisling Grey series and I even like most of her Dark Ones vampires series. So I picked up this book which is shelved in the mystery section.

Second, I should say that this book is written mostly in the first person. So if that bugs you, you've been warned!

Now, this book centers around the character of Karma Marx. She's a paranormal being and ends up assisting Adam, another paranormal being, in a murder investigation involving paranormal beings and a couple of humans. I'm not sure, but this book appears to be written with the possibility of other books to follow using the same/similar characters.

I really didn't enjoy the book very much. The mystery was mystifying, but the denouement was unsatisfying. Yes, the clues were there, but the author intentionally left out the biggest clues regarding the perp. The murderer, although arguably justified, was not discovered via the clues. I guess that is what really bugged me.

This book could very well be fabulous for others. It zipped along at a rapid pace and at 279 pages was a quick read. It just didn't leave me with a good taste in my mouth. ( )