A Skeleton in the Family

Written by Leigh Perry

Narrated by Katina Kalin

Most families have skeletons in their closets …

Moving back into her parents’ house with her teenage daughter had not been Georgia Thackery’s “Plan A.” But when she got a job at the local college, it seemed the sensible thing to do. So she settled in and began reconnecting with old friends.

Including Sid. Sid is the Thackery family’s skeleton. He’s lived in the house as long as Georgia can remember, although no one, including Sid, knows exactly where he came from and how he came to be a skeleton.

Sid walks, he talks, he makes bad jokes, he tries to keep Georgia’s dog from considering him a snack. And he manages to persuade Georgia to let him leave the house. But when she takes him to an anime convention—disguised as a
skeleton, of course—he sees a woman who triggers memories of his past.

Now he is determined to find out how he died—with Georgia’s help. But their investigation may uncover a killer who’s still alive and well and bad to the bone …

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781980088783

Reviews for A Skeleton in the Family

[kevn57-163679 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I wanted a paranormal fantasy series for October and thought I'd give this a try. I didn't have high expectations going into it, figured this would just be plain silly at best or just dumb. But boy was I wrong, I loved the mother/daughter from the first chapter on, the mom Georgia is into pop culture and raised her daughter to be a geek as well. Madison is a huge otaku with a love for manga and anime and they both attend a con together. Sid, the skeleton is endearing as well, reading the Harry Potter books, his favorite movie being the Nightmare Before Christmas. So with characters like these how could I fail to love the book. I'm reading the next in this series for sure.

[auntie0nanuuq · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Very "cute", entertaining, & easy to read...Georgia & her daughter Madison, have moved back into the family home in order for Georgia to work as an "adjunct" English professor in one of the local colleges, where her (off on sabbatical) parents have tenure...Upon arriving home, Georgia is greeted by Sid, the skeleton that has lived with the family since the night he saved her life when she was six years old...Madison is in to Manga, so when she goes to a Manga convention @ the college where Georgia is employed, Sid goes along dressed as Desu-sama "Great Lord of Death". While there he sees a woman who for some reason frightens him, thus begins the mystery...She turns out to be a professor at a local University and when Georgia & Sid go to visit her (in order to find out more about Sid's fear of her), they find her dead.....This leads to the secondary investigation as to whom Sid was, how he got to be a skeleton, & what his connection was to the now dead professor....The book held my interest, but there were major flaws in the story, gaps, that a good editor would have caught & questioned, which provided for a semi-sloppy ending (thus less one star)It is a fun series and I am already reading the second in the series.....Thank-you whomever it was who read this before me, it was in my "updates", and I'm glad you reviewed it... I had run out of entertaining things to read.

[ibeth_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This mystery was oddball, unlike any other mysteries I have read, in a very good way. I enjoyed wisecracking Sid. I appreciated the true-to-life details about being an adjunct English instructor (not everyone gets the academic life right). I confess that I skipped a big chunk of the middle of the book, largely because I was running out of time to read and I wanted to see how it ended! One of these days I will backtrack and see what I missed. For sure, I'll want to look into the next book in the series.

[cathyskye · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm open to new premises in the paranormal mystery category, so I was more than willing to give Leigh Perry's first book in this series about college professor Georgia Thackery and her family skeleton a try. From the very first page, I immediately began to enjoy Perry's writing style and sense of humor. Georgia Thackery is the type of funny, smart, and caring character to whom I can warm up quickly. One of the things I also appreciated was the wealth of knowledge this character imparted about being an untenured college professor-- it's not the sort of career any teacher would choose for themselves, and I'm hoping that Georgia can change that part of her life quickly.What I really need to talk about a bit is the elephant in the room: Sid the skeleton. How well did a talking, walking, joke-cracking skeleton (who has his own armoire in which to hide in case he's caught downstairs) really work in this book? For me, Sid was only an intermittent success. His dialogue and relationship with Georgia worked very well. These two have known each other for a long time, and it shows. Georgia genuinely wants to help Sid find out what happened. But whenever my mind's eye was drawn by choice of verbs and adverbs to the fact that there were fleshless footbones clacking across that hardwood floor, my inner movie screen jumped into a melange of 1930s black-and-white films with their herky-jerky special effects.Most fans of paranormal cozy mysteries will probably take to Sid like he's a long-lost cousin, and there's a lot to like about him and this book. I enjoyed the author's writing style and sense of humor, as well as the mystery itself and the character of Georgia. Unfortunately, were I to stop by the Thackery home, I'd prefer that Sid stay in his armoire.

[silkocean · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The story is a very fast, delightful read. I can't wait for the next in the series.

[yoder-4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A Skeleton In The Family is the first book in the Family Skeleton series.

Even the author says this is a little off the wall and I have to agree, but I loved it and look forward to more books in this series.

Georgia and her teenaged daughter, Madison, have moved back to the family hometown, where she has gotten a teaching position at the local college. Georgia is looking forward to catching up with Sid, who is a skeleton.

The Thackery family has "owned" Sid the skeleton for around thirty years and Georgia had named him Sid when they "rescued" him from a traveling carnival.

This book centers around Sid wanting to know who he is and how he came to be dead. Georgia and him get a lead on a lady professor that looks familiar to Sid and sneak into her house, only to find that she has been murdered. A couple strange events had happened at college and they are wondering if she was killed or if she was a victim of burglary gone wrong.

I admit, I had my doubts when I started the book, but quickly changed to loving it. And Sid has some of the best lines. They be corney, but still, they made me laugh.

Looking forward to book #2.