Magic and Mayhem at Mistletoe Manor

By Maggie Mundy

Magic and Mayhem at Mistletoe Manor is a !920's murder mystery with a twist.

Penny was leaving the bright lights of 1920's London for a quiet time in the country. Sometimes things do not turn out the way you expect. He grandparents home, Mistletoe Manor is haunted and the local village has the occasional dead body lying around. Penny decides she needs to solve who did it. Find the lost treasure or lose the manor.
On top of all that she must do her witch exam and help some ghosts pass over.
So much for a quiet life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maggie Mundy
• Release date: Apr 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201051693

Maggie Mundy

Australian author Maggie Rose lives in Australia with her husband and dog Duke. She has always loved reading fantasy, paranormal, and contemporary romance books and decided the stories in her head needed to be written—it was either that or start on medication. She writes hot, sexy men and women who have troubled pasts and are looking for their soulmate. She may make them suffer along the way, but you always get a happy ending. Maggie believes romance can be fun to read and write, but it's exciting to spice it up with the uncertainty that comes with suspense where the rules can be broken.

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Magic and Mayhem at Mistletoe Manor

Maggie Mundy

Magic and Mayhem at Mistletoe Manor © 2021 Maggie Mundy

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, real people, and real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, organizations or places is entirely coincidental.

All rights are reserved. This book is intended for the purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author. All songs, song titles, and lyrics contained in this book are the property of the respective songwriters and copyright holders.

Magic and Mayhem at Mistletoe Manor

Ghosts, murder and magic abound in a small village

Chapter 1

So, it was nearly Christmas and Penny was not going to panic. Not true. She was definitely panicking. Within the next five days she needed to move house, prepare for Christmas lunch with her cousin, Annabel and her partner. She also needed to practice some more of her spells before Great Uncle Clive arrived from Scotland.

Penny followed the moving truck down the windy lane and wondered if this had been such a good idea after all. Who moves house at this time of year? Someone who has very little money and nowhere else to go, that’s who. The lease on her flat was finished and she would have been out on the streets. The weather was awful with grey skies and snow threatening to fall. Snow, she liked, as it would make the place look even more festive though she didn’t want to have to shovel it from the front door to get out.

She hoped the old manor house had some form of heating still going but she couldn’t remember. It was 1928 and she had not been here for years. Her previous visits had been all too brief. She did remember playing hide and seek as a child with Annabel. Memories of a basement with lots of cobwebs came back to her. She hated spiders with a vengeance. Just thinking about them now made her hair stand on end. That day long ago, Annabel had found her and she spent the rest of the afternoon thinking spiders were crawling all over her skin. She would not be going down there for a while and not in the dark. Then again it would make a fantastic darkroom for her photography.

That was long ago and she was all grown up and wanted to see the old place. Her grandparents had been eccentric and she had to admit most people thought her a bit odd too. Penny took it as a compliment. Who wanted to be part of the crowd? Penny had loved her flat in London but it had been too expensive to keep up now she was no longer working. Her secretarial position had been good while it lasted but her heart wasn’t in it. What she really wanted to do was grow beautiful flowers and do her photography. She just had to work out how she could make money from those activities. She has a little money saved from her inheritance but it wouldn’t last long. She didn’t want to sell the manor, but worried how much the upkeep would cost. Her dreams might have to wait for now.

The car jolted as she hit a pothole. She would need to remember to bring a pillow next time to save her posterior. Penny rounded the last bend and the village of Greater Thorsten came into view. It was only ten miles outside of Bath which was a thriving city, but it seemed as if this village was stuck in time. The houses were all thatched and there was a green sloping down to a pond, a pub called the Wild Boar, a village hall and a church. There was a group of women standing outside the village shop. They stopped talking and stared at her as she drove by. She was tempted to blow them a kiss but thought better for it. Her arrival would be all around the village by tea time as it was.

Her grandparents old house was on the outskirts of the village behind high walls making it even more secretive. The moving men stopped the truck and opened the creaky gates. The gates looked so old she thought they might drop off their hinges and onto her car as she traveled through. The garden was extensive but not too badly kept. There was a gardener and a housekeeper if she could afford to keep them on. She also hoped the old greenhouse was still in good condition for her flower growing plans. The driveway had more potholes and she wobbled about on her seat as they drove up to her new home. Penny parked the car and climbed out, pulling her coat around her and stared up at the manor house.

It was two stories high and old brick and one of the few homes in the village that had a slate roof. The old chimney looked as if it was wobbling and might fall off. That was something she would have to deal with later. She grabbed the large metal key from her pocket and handed it to one of the moving men. It creaked as it was turned in the lock and she held her breath. Her new life was about to begin.

Within hours her meager belongings were unloaded and she paid and said farewell to the moving men. The house was full of her grandparent’s old furniture that was covered by drop sheets. The sheets made the place look as if it was haunted by ghosts and she expected them