Dead and Breakfast by Kate Kingsbury

 Dead and Breakfast by Kate Kingsbury - 288 pages, ⭐⭐☆☆☆

While going through a messy divorce, Melanie West helps her grandmother, Liza, fix up an old house, with plans to turn it into a bed and breakfast.  Their plans are put on hold, however, when they find a dead body in one of the walls.  As the bed and breakfast will remain closed until the case is solved, Melanie and Liza take it upon themselves to solve the case so they can open before they run out of money.  There's also a ghost who occasionally laughs and moves things around, freaking everyone out a bit.

It's a cozy mystery, but more cozy than mystery.  Most of its 288 pages are taken up with shopping, cooking, worrying about running out of money, and Liza pressuring Melanie to get together with a hunky local cop.  The ghost does even less than Liza and Melanie, and when something supernatural does happen, the main characters are spooked for a moment, then they shrug and decide to go shopping or something.  There is a mystery, but it's so bland and underwhelming that it makes the book feel even more like a waste of time.  

Why is this two stars and not one, then?  Liza's 'find yourself a man' mentality aside, I did like her character.  She reminded me of Betty White.  Melanie also adopts a dog in the second half of the book, and he's adorable.  The dog and Liza's spunk, however, are the book's only redeeming qualities.  There just isn't much reason to read Dead and Breakfast.