A Medium's Birthday Surprise

Becky Tibbs: A North Carolina Medium's Mystery Series, Book 1

By: Chariss K. Walker

Narrated by: Kathleen Britt

Length: 3 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's Summary

Twenty-six-year-old Becky Tibbs sees ghosts, and she is not afraid to help them. Join Becky in Asheville, North Carolina, as she solves many mysteries in the clean, sweet cozy mystery series.

©2018 Chariss K. Walker (P)2020 Chariss K. Walker

Ghost whisperer

A Medium’s Birthday Surprise is the first book in the Becky Tibbs: A North Carolina Medium’s Mystery Series series by Chariss K. Walker. When our main character, Becky, is visited on her birthday by the angry spirit of her long disappeared ex-boyfriend, who is clearly dead now, she must find a way to help it pass on into the next world and make justice in his name in this one. You see? Becky is a medium and she helps the community by using her skills to put restless spirits to peace.

Actor and narrator Kathleen Britt reads this cozy mystery with a touch of paranormal in all calm and reassuring voice. She keeps the listener interested in the story and brings all the characters to life with her unhurried performance. I think that this story could have benefited more from a younger narrator, with all due respect to Kathleen, but it wasn’t something that detracted too much from the immersion and all in all it was a good audio production.

Well written, easy to follow and driven by an interesting mystery, a medium’s birthday surprise by Chariss K. Walker is quite an enjoyable narrative experience with which you can snuggle up in your happy spot for a few hours in any of these long, moody, December nights. This is a promising first book in a series that I think I will check out in the future to see how Becky is doing.

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Light and Quick Ghostly Mystery

A ghostly mystery for a medium to solve sounded all sorts of fun listening. I was glad to try a new to me author and narrator for the first installment in this paranormal cozy mystery series.

A Medium’s Birthday Surprise jumped right into things with antique shop owner, Becky Tibbs, getting a visit from the ghost of her high school crush who disappeared and died ten years before on her birthday. Since that moment, her parents passed away in a car crash and she, her brother, Bobby, and her sister, Barbara, learned they inherited their mother’s heritage- a medium talent to see and talk to the dead. Becky embraced the gift and is known as a medium to the living and helper to the dead while her siblings do their best to downplay or ignore the talent.

This book introduces a fun and curious world where ghosts roam the streets of Ashville alongside the living. I loved how the ghosts and the family medium talent were at the center of it all. It opened on a scene at Becky’s business and started me out feeling like I had missed something, but then darted between present events and getting the listener up to speed about Becky, her background, and her family as well as history with each newly introduced character so I lost the confused feeling. The situation is important, but not drastic since the ghost’s death was a decade earlier, but she must figure out the truth to help settle the ghosts so there is a cold case mystery and their small part of Ashville and growing up there allows her to have the right contacts in the police and the community to do a fair job of investigating which she does when her mind’s not caught up on stuff that affects the pacing of the story.

The pace is uneven at times Becky gets philosophical about her family, her past, and her view of religion so that there were lag moments before the plot would pick back up again. Nearer the end, the story settled into the plot and a nice pace as she tracked down the facts of Josh, her high school crush’s, death and another related angry ghost.

A Medium’s Birthday Surprise sets up for a full series of further paranormal mysteries. I thought the main character was sweet and generous so she needed to help others even ghosts. The side characters that were introduced will be as welcome as Becky in future books.

Kathleen Britt had a distinct narration voice and way of voicing the characters that wasn’t bad, but I did find distracting. Her male voices had some frogginess to them. I needed time to settle into her style of narration. The production quality of the audiobook was excellent.

In summary, I liked it, but also felt it had first book in series issues and I wasn’t completely immersed in the story though I want to go on to book two. The medium and ghost world the author created was great and I love that the main character solves ghostly mysteries. I think others who are looking for paranormal cozy mysteries should take a look at the series.

Sweet ghost filled mystery.

I can't wait to see what happens next with the Tibbs family.
The narrative brings the story to life. I definitely will be listening to it again.
This audio book was given to me for free at my request from the publisher or author or narrator and I provided this unbiased voluntary review.

An Enjoyable Listen

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request, and have voluntarily left this review. It's your birthday and your greeted by an old boy friend while having breakfast...too bad that he's been dead for 10 years. It really shouldn't have shocked Becky, her and her siblings and see and speak to the dead. But it does and now she has a mystery to solve. A very enjoyable series, the characters are unique, adding to the suspense filled plot in this action filled, and at times humourous tale.

A Medium's Birthday Surprise

I really enjoyed this book! Becky Tibbs is a sweet, kind-hearted person. She is ready to help any friend, family member, or ghost in their time of need. Even though her siblings have the same abilities for being a medium, Becky seems to be the only one who really embraced those skills and put them to good use. It was a quick read that kept my interest.
She is a real treat and I hope to read the others in this series soon!
I was given this free review copy audiobook (through AudioBook Boom) at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Not a book you will want to put down

Becky and her siblings discover that they are mediums when their parents die in a car crash and come home in an unexpected way. Each handles this discovery in different ways. On Becky's 26th birthday, her first boyfriend comes back to see her even though he died ten years ago. The siblings parents also visit as it is Becky's birthday. This is the story of how the siblings deal with both the continuing visits from their parents and the complications they entail along with more visits from her boyfriend as it turns out her boyfriend's death was part of a crime. Chariss Walker has woven an intriguing story that kept me hooked until the end of the book and looking for more.

A Medium's Birthday Surprise Becky Tibbs: A North

On the day of their parent's death, Becky and her older siblings, Bobbi and Barbara, discover they have inherited a little known ability--the ability to see ghosts. Once the ghosts in the area of Ashville,NC find out there are new mediums in the area they flock to them. Bobbi and Barbara are not thrilled with this little ability especially when they can see their parents on a daily basis. So they find ways to hobble their gift. Becky embraces her ability and takes to this new ability. Unfortunately she gets inundated with ghosts ghosts and more ghosts. Then one morning her 16 year old crush, who disappeared the night of her 16th birthday party only to be found dead the next day, appears before her. But to her chagrin he doesn't realize he's dead. Now she is on a mission to discover what happened to him so she can help him cross over. Along the way she discovers there is another ghost tied to Josh and she needs to help him also.
Kathleen Britt does a remarkable job of presenting the characters.
Fantastic audio and remarkable story!!

A Medium’s Birthday Surprise

Becky and her siblings all started manifesting special abilities after an event that affected them all. Each handles them differently. When Becky gets a surprise visitor on her birthday, it ends up being a lot more than what she ever expected. Will she be able to help?

I really enjoyed this paranormal cozy mystery by Chariss K. Walker. It’s a great start to the series with the introduction of the characters and their relationships. I’m looking forward to more.

Kathleen Britt did a fine job with the narration. She performed it well and I had no issues with it.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and I have voluntarily left this review.

different and heartwarming.

you must separate the narration from the story. I believe the narration has a lot missing from it. To me, there is a difference between narrating and reading. The near raider for this book to me, was simply reading. However, the story is wonderful! I found this book extremely heartwarming, addictive, and intriguing. The paranormal aspect of the book gave me a much different view of solving a crime. we know that siblings share a lot, they inherit similar qualities, but are also extremely different from one another. there is one quality, in this book, that three siblings share unlike any other set of siblings. It binds them closely together, but it also can tear them apart. I cannot wait to read the next book in the series! I am anxiously waiting to see how each sibling handles the commonality between them. You want to find out how everything starts, and unfolds. You will not be disappointed!

I will be listening to the others in this series

Kathleen Britt was the perfect voice for this book. I hope she is used as the voice in any others! I read and reviewed this book on Amazon (as well as all the others in this series). They never fail to delight me. I hope to be able to listen to all the others as they come out!

A Mediums Birthday

I really enjoyed this book! Narration by Kathleen Britt was good. I was given this title free for an honest review.

great book

enjoyed audio book
Twenty-six-year-old Becky Tibbs sees ghosts, and she is not afraid to help them. Join Becky in Asheville,

Enjoyable

Following the death of their parents Becky and her siblings discover they have an unusual gift, they can see dead people. Whilst her sister visits a psychiatrist and her brother quietens the ghosts with alcohol Becky decides to help the spirits who contact her. She gets a surprise visit on her Birthday from her teenage boyfriend who died 10 years ago and she sets out to help him, uncovering old secrets. A really enjoyable read.

A big surprise

I enjoyed this book. This book was in the wrong category for me and should be in the cosy mystery section instead of horror, so don't left that put you off listening to the book because it is more funny than scary. I liked the way the three siblings coped or didn't cope with there powers, it made it interesting and the characters more like able, especially Becky who was willing to use her powers to talk to some quirky ghosts, even a ghost dog paid a visit. The mystery was interesting, and I liked the way Becky helped a ghost who didn't know he was dead, mainly by solving his murder and helping him move on. Over all a fun new series that I will be keeping an eye out for more, as I want to find out what the author has in store for the siblings.
Three siblings all have different reactions to Becky's birthday, her sister hired from it and her brother barely tolerates it but Becky has never feared it until now. Her ex boy friend shows up for the party, the only problem is he has been dead for the last ten years and he doesn't seem to know. Becky the only one of the siblings to embrace her gift to talk to ghosts sets out to find out why he ran out on her birthday party ten years ago and just how he got himself killed? She had better hurry because the more her ghostly ex remembers the more angry he gets and that only spells trouble for Becky.
I liked the narrator, she has a very laid back approach to her reading which makes the story easy to listen to.
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.