The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing (Mo & Dale Mysteries)

Sheila Turnage's second book starring Mo LoBeau and her best friend Dale is both a fantastic continuation of their story and perfect starting point for readers new to Tupelo Landing. This standalone companion to THREE TIMES LUCKY takes readers back to Tupelo Landing and lands them right in the

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middle of a new mystery with amateur sleuths Mo and Dale. The Desperado Detective Agency has a new case after Miss Lana accidentally purchases Tupelo's Landing's Inn... with a ghost in the fine print. With the help of the new kid in town, Mo and Dale decide the ghost's identity and figure out why she's sticking around a dusty old inn. Plus, if they interview her for their school project, they'll get extra credit! As the ghost's story is revealed, Mo and Dale learn that people, not just buildings, can be haunted by the past.

Mo LoBeau is one of my favorite MG characters. Smart, hilarious (even when she doesn't mean to be, which is most of the time), and infinitely curious, she's always up for an adventure and never afraid to speak her mind. She sees the magic the world has to offer and never loses her nerve, even in the face of danger. If I find her inspiring as a 20-something year old, I can only imagine how much readers her own age will love her! Who wouldn't love a girl who makes observations like:

"It's hard to know what to say when your best friend serenades an amphibian. On one hand, Miss Lana likes me to be sensitive. On the other hand, the Colonel says most situations don't require my input."

I highly recommend that you read both THREE TIMES LUCKY and THE GHOSTS OF TUPELO LANDING to get the full Mo and Dale experience, but both novels successfully stand on their own as well!

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A most worthy sequel to Three Times Lucky.

The characters were fun, but the storyline dragged on a bit and couldn't keep my kids attention at times.

The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing by Sheila Turnage is the sequel to Three Times Lucky but the first one I've read. That said, it stands alone just fine with plenty of time given on reintroducing characters, setting, and basic plot dynamics.

At the edge of Tupelo Landing, there's an Inn, abandoned since

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the 1930s. To save some history and keep an annoying busybody from moving in, Miss Lana makes the winning bid at the auction. There's just one problem — the place comes with its very own ghost.

Mo and her best friend Dale are on the case, deciding to meet and greet the ghost and see if an arrangement can be made. They also want to interview him or her for their history project — a guaranteed A.

Now where's a book with the perfect mix of elements to get my attention. For the mystery lover, there's the amateur detectives. For the horror fan, there's the hotel with buried and tragic history. For the paranormal fan, there's the ghost. For the history fan, there's a prohibition era story. And it all comes together into a quirky but charming tale set in a small, fictional North Carolina town.

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Mo and her friends and family are such realistic characters that at first I wasn't sure what I thought about the addition of a possible ghost in this second mystery featuring Mo and Dale. I found to my satisfaction that the ghost angle enhanced rather than detracted from the realism of the people

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in Tupelo Landing. I enjoyed getting to know the people in the town better after my introduction to them in Three Times Lucky, and I was quite interested in new character Harmon and his place in the town and the book. My words to Sheila Turnage: "Keep the Tupelo Landing stories coming! You keep writing them this good and I'll keep buying and reading them!"

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Lovely follow-up to first Mo and Dale mystery. There are family ghosts, friendship ghosts and a ghostly inn, plus character development and the best result for a series, wanting to read more.

Liked this almost as much as the first one.

The eagerly anticipated followup to the Newbery honor winner and New York Times bestseller, Three Times Lucky

Small towns have rules. One is, you got to stay who you are -- no matter how many murders you solve.

When Miss Lana makes an Accidental Bid at the Tupelo auction and winds up the mortified

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owner of an old inn, she doesn't realize there's a ghost in the fine print. Naturally, Desperado Detective Agency (aka Mo and Dale) opens a paranormal division to solve the mystery of the ghost's identity. They've got to figure out who the ghost is so they can interview it for their history assignment (extra credit). But Mo and Dale start to realize that the Inn isn't the only haunted place in Tupelo Landing. People can also be haunted by their own past. As Mo and Dale handily track down the truth about the ghost (with some help from the new kid in town), they discover the truth about a great many other people, too.

A laugh out loud, ghostly, Southern mystery that can be enjoyed by readers visiting Tupelo Landing for the first time, as well as those who are old friends of Mo and Dale.

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Another good read-aloud w R. Turnage has a way of seeding the story with bon mots, uncertain if they're her own or examples of Southern colloquialisms. These should be collected, but I didn't note them as we went. One from book 3: "Just because people are talking doesn't mean your friends are

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listening," or words to that effect.

Another big aspect of the series is that Mo, a tween, has regular, meaningful, and varied interactions with people of all ages. Adults, whether parents or teachers, elders related and not, kids older and younger than her. Some of these people are good, some of each oppose her; she likes some and not others. A great example of intergenerational relationships.

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I got to page 45 and was just so uninterested. There's the auction, they start sixth grade, they are assigned a project. Too many characters to keep straight. Time to mice on. It was just not a book for thus reader.

children's fiction. The cast of characters (even the ornery ones) are still endearing and I think I shall always be glad to revisit them, but this didn't have the impact of the first impression that last year's book did. Even so, it stands alone (if it has to--I will tell kids to read them in

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order).

p.s. the ghost scenes are very spooky!

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