| Title | : | The Legend of Sleepy Harlow (League of Literary Ladies #3) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0425257770 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780425257777 |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 304 |
| Publication | : | First published October 7, 2014 |
For Halloween, the Literary Ladies have chosen to read Washington Irving’s spooky classic, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, with its infamous headless horseman. But South Bass Island has its own headless legend—of a Prohibition bootlegger named Charlie “Sleepy” Harlow. Decapitated by rival rumrunners, Harlow appears once a year in spectral form to search for his noggin.
This October, the Elkhart Ghost Getters (EGG) have returned to the island. The group claims that they have film footage of Harlow’s ghost, and are determined to get more. They’re staying at Bea Cartwright’s B and B, but it’s Kate Wilder who isn’t happy to see them after they trashed her winery last year. When the EGG leader turns up dead, Kate becomes the prime suspect, and the other League members need to scramble to crack the case.
The Legend of Sleepy Harlow (League of Literary Ladies #3) Reviews
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3 stars to
Kylie Logan's
The Legend of Sleepy Harlow, the third in the "League of Literary Ladies" series about a woman who moves to the midwest to open a B&B after some mysterious troubles in NYC. Since this is a good Halloween ghost story that ties together an incident from 300 years ago to the present on quiet South Bass Island on the Great Lakes, it's worth a read, but I needed a little more complexity in the story to push it up to a 4.
Story
A supernatural ghost hunting group who call themselves EGG visits the B&B on Halloween to try and find the headless ghost, Sleepy Harlow, who was murdered by a rival bootlegger nearly 300 years ago. Unfortunately, when they visited South Bass Island the previous year, they tormented Bea's friend Kate who was very angry with their return. When one of the group turns up dead, Sheriff Hank can only assume Kate is guilty, but he enlists Bea to help find more clues that can save Kate from going to prison. While searching around, as well as helping another friend write a biography on Sleepy Harlow, Bea finds unusual connections among the EGG team, realizes who murdered the EGG ghost hunter and determines which one her friends has deeper ties to Sleepy that she realized.
Strengths
Everyone loves a ghost story. And when it's parallel to Washington Irving's Sleepy Hollow, how can you resist? There's romance, threats, murder, ghosts and intrigue in this story helping to cement South Bass Island in deep American history.
We get some much needed focus on the Bea and Levi romance dance. Whether you're a fan or don't want them together, at least we now understand what's going on between them.
Weaknesses
There were not enough suspects in this one. EGG had very little ties to the inhabitants of South Bass Island which meant the murderer could really only come from their group. No other suspects were even considered besides Kate -- and we knew she couldn't have done it given she is one of the primary characters in this series.
The connection between Sleepy Hollow and one of the girls was a great nugget and surprise, but barely a page was devoted to it. It would have been even better if in the resolution, the character reflected on her newly found relation and change to her past history / family tree. What a miss!
Final Thoughts
Overall, it's a good read. I feel like it could have been bound more tightly together given it's a serial cozy mystery. The story was good, could have been better with more details and fell shy of getting a 4 from me. But I like the series, the author and the characters, so I'll move on to Book 4.
About Me
For those new to me or my reviews... here's the scoop: I read A LOT. I write A LOT. And now I blog A LOT. First the book review goes on Goodreads, and then I send it on over to my WordPress blog at
https://thisismytruthnow.com, where you'll also find TV & Film reviews, the revealing and introspective 365 Daily Challenge and lots of blogging about places I've visited all over the world. And you can find all my social media profiles to get the details on the who/what/when/where and my pictures. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Vote in the poll and ratings. Thanks for stopping by. Note: All written content is my original creation and copyrighted to me, but the graphics and images were linked from other sites and belong to them. Many thanks to their original creators. -
Halloween Bingo 2022
The perfect cozy mystery for Halloween! The Literary Ladies carve pumpkins, wear costumes, and support each other through a third murder investigation. I loved the creation of a headless ghost to echo their book club selection
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Kylie Logan writes a good mystery.
Only one thing really annoyed me: at the beginning of the book, Chandra's cat, Jerry Garcia, pees on a manuscript that Bea is proofreading for Marianne. Now, you'd think that an animal the size of a horse or a cow had let loose on this pile of paper. Cats are small, relatively speaking. Annoyed googling resulted with the estimation of a cat's bladder capacity at 3 to 5 tablespoons. Yes, it would be stinky (I've gagged over a litterbox or two). But Logan has it pouring all over the manuscript, the porch chair, and Bea's shoes. Five tablespoons (let's give Jerry the maximum volume, yes?) is unlikely to do this much damage. Perhaps growing up on a farm has made me impervious to some grossness, but I would have poured off the pee and then hung the pages on a line to dry. The manuscript would not be completely ruined. And yes, I know why Logan wrote it that way—to give Bea a reason to investigate the history of the rumrunner, Sleepy Harlow. (And you can tell how much this bugged me by the length of this rant!)
Once things got rolling, I forgave the urinary exaggeration and just enjoyed how things rolled out. I was somewhat disheartened that these women, who are usually so tight, were divided in this outing. Kate seems to just collapse, Chandra acts extra weird, and Marianne needs emergency medical care on the mainland. Only Luella is steady as she goes and willing to help Bea. However, everyone is exonerated by the end (come on, this is a cozy, of course none of them have gone over to the dark side, this is NOT a spoiler.)
I'm happy to say I still have two books to go in this series. Next month for Appointment with Agatha,we are reading
And Then There Were None, which I plan to follow with
And Then There Were Nuns. -
Really this is a very good "new" cozy-mystery series that I hope will continue for awhile.
I really love the characters Bea, Chandra, Luella, and Kate. They are all different but so much fun. I found myself laughing out loud at some of the things Chandra said and nodding in agreement at other times to Luella. I also loved that the tension between Levi and Bea was resolved in this book, I found it kind of tiring.
The only really bad part in this book was the end. I felt that the killer was kinda obvious and to top it off the ending was kinda lame, to be honest. The killer didn't put up a fight, there was no really ending to all of the suspense that the author had wonderfully built up.
Overall, however, this book was a great part of an amazing series. I would highly recommend it! -
This was a perfect slightly-spooky cozy for the Halloween season. I am not a fan of really spooky stories or horror, so books like this suit me just fine when I'm in the mood for some Halloween reading.
Bea had a B&B full of ghost hunters that were looking for the ghost of Charlie "Sleepy" Harlow, a rum runner from prohibition days. The leader of the group, Noreen, supposedly had footage of him from last year, and they wanted to include it on their reality ghost hunting series. Since no one really liked Noreen, when she turned up dead, there was no shortage of suspects, at least in Bea's mind. But Hank was more interested in Kate Wilder as a suspect, since Noreen had been killed inside part of her winery.
Bea had one side issue going on throughout the book. Her librarian friend Marianne had written a historical account of Charlie Harlow's life and asked Bea to proof it for her. Before she even had a chance, Chandra's cat Jerry used the manuscript as his bathroom which of course resulted in a soggy, nasty mess. When Bea found out that Marianne's computer had crashed and she had the only copy, she needed to make herself go through the wet pages of the manuscript and type it up from scratch. That was all really comical! With so many parts that were unreadable, Bea felt the need to do some research on Sleepy Harlow. That led to some fun alone time with Levi.
I had kind of guessed who killed Noreen, but not for the reason that was given. It was a really well-constructed mystery with plenty of red herrings and a little spookiness that was explained later. Since I know there are only two books left in the series, I hope Bea and Levi can become a couple by the last book.
I've heard others say that this author does a great job of wrapping up a series since she has another series that was ended but I heard it ended in a good way. I know I'm really enjoying this series. Who knew the camaraderie that the League of Literary Ladies shares now all came from them fighting and disagreeing in the first book. Highly recommended series! -
Calling this one 3.5 stars. I like this series okay, but I don't love it. This one was better than the 2nd, which is good. I like the Halloween time frame and Sleepy's side story was good. I just don't care much about Bea one way or the other. And Levi is still too much of an enigma. Give us a little more info on him, already! I'll read the next one of these, but if it's not a whole lot better, and there's not some more information on Levi, don't know if I'll continue after that.
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It's almost Halloween time and the Literary Ladies of South Bass Island, had chosen to read the spooky classic The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. But even South Bass Island carries its own legend of a headless Prohibition bootlegger named Charley Sleepy Harlow who possibly comes out on Halloween searching for his treasure.
When EGG (Elkhart Ghost Getters) show up at Bea's B and B to film yet another episode for their show. The leader has only one mission and that's to enter Kate Wilder's winery and get another shot of the infamous Sleepy Harlow that they claim to have a shot of from last year, that made their show oh so popular. Kate won\'t have any of them crossing their property. Not after destroying some of her really expensive grapes while filming last year. Disagreement and arguments fly, tensions rise and the leader of EGG turns up dead in a casket. Now Kate is getting blamed and Bea and the other Literary Ladies will not stand by and allow for their friend to go down when they are sure that she is innocent.
Oh I thought this would be a fun Halloween read and it certainly was. It had a mystery, it had a bit of magic and I loved the tie in of the legend of Sleepy Harlow. When Bea is requested by one of her dear friends to read her book before she gets it published and a cat pees all over her copy, Bea is on the mission to recreate her friend's book. So while trying to figure out who actually killed the leader of EGG, Bea is also snooping around town trying to dig up the history of Sleepy Harlow and someone is trying to get in her way. I loved following the story line and learning more about Sleepy, I found that a really nice side addition to the story that tied and made it that much more interesting. Thought I did not understand how Bea could actually recreate her friends book. If she was rewriting the entire thing, doesn
But the mystery was fun, even if I had it figured half way, everything else made this quiet a delightful read. From the wonderful storytelling by Logan, to the interesting plot and great characters!
't it then really become her own book? Since most of it is not actually her friends words?
I got a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange of an honest review. -
Dollycas’s Thoughts
That darn Jerry Garcia, Chandra’s cat, would be on his 9th life if he lived around me – but he does give this story quite a start.
That is until the EGG (Elkhart Ghost Getters) show up with all their ghost busting and filming equipment. That is when we find out about The Legend of Sleepy Harlow. We also find out this is NOT the EGG’s first visit to South Bass Island and everyone is not happy about their return. In fact Kate is screaming mad they are back in town but would she really kill one of them?
I have read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow several times. The story by Washington Irving is a classic and a very fast read. Logan’s story took that and combined it with the Ghostbusters and Ghost Hunters of movies and television respectively. I am not as familiar with the Ghost Hunting series but the equipment immediately made me think of the things Egon created in Ghostbusters. All mixed together it made for a very exciting and entertaining read.
Of course I love these Literary Ladies. They have their hands full with this adventure especially when one of their friends is off having surgery and another has a special project thanks to Jerry Garcia. Luella is also doing everything she can to push Bea and Levi together. Bea takes the lead on the investigation and is doing everything she can to find suspects besides Kate but those alibis keep tripping her up. I had a thought of who it could be but that final twist made everything fall right into place.
Kylie Logan writes such fun mysteries and she creates such vibrant characters. She also puts then in some scary situations. Snakes, Kylie, I could have done without the snakes, but there were right where you would expect them to be so I shouldn’t have been surprised. It just sent extra chills up my back for just a few moments. :)
Kylie Logan has done it again. This is a fabulous mystery and perfect for your Halloween reading! This story does read well as a stand alone too but you really need to read them all and meet these ladies from the start, back when they couldn’t stand each other. This is an excellent cozy series! -
Books written around other books are some of my favorite reading. In this third book of the League of Literary Ladies Mysteries, the book fits right into the season, as they are reading The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow. These ladies were first brought together by court order because they couldn't stop bickering and verbally fighting with one another. They began a book group and now that they've also solved a couple of murders in their town, they are great close friends.
Their town has it's own legendary ghost, bootlegger, Sleepy Harlow. A group of paranormal ghost chasers have returned to town to try and recapture a picture of Sleepy Harlow, who was also beheaded. But book group member, Kate, is having no part of this. The group came through last year and filmed at her winery, destroying prize grape vines in the process. But the ghost chaser's leader apparently chooses not to listen, and makes a clandestine trip with her equipment to the winery, where she ends up bludgeoned with her own paranormal equipment. As no one really liked her anyway, the list of suspects in long.
Bea, the B&B owner hosting the group for their stay, doesn't believe in ghosts, but she's helping to edit a story of Sleepy's life, so she finds herself in the center of another murder investigation. Sleepy's history gets very interesting, and clues lead the investigation to lots of people.
This is definitely a fun read. The originally bickering characters are all so very different with likeable, but intriguingly different personalities. I like that the town's lawman is not always telling Bea to stay out of the investigation. In fact, he seeks her help. And who is Sleepy Harlow---ah, read the story and find out!! -
Since I don't normally write reviews unless I have something specific to say, here's the break down of how I rate my books...
1 star... This book was bad, so bad I may have given up and skipped to the end. I will avoid this author like the plague in the future.
2 stars... This book was not very good, and I won't be reading any more from the author.
3 stars... This book was ok, but I won't go out of my way to read more, But if I find another book by the author for under a dollar I'd pick it up.
4 stars... I really enjoyed this book and will definitely be on the look out to pick up more from the series/author.
5 stars... I loved this book! It had earned a permanent home in my collection and I'll be picking up the rest of the series and other books from the author ASAP. -
Full disclosure: the author is a friend, and she was kind enough to give me a copy after I helped her Skype with a few book groups at my library. I was so pleased to receive this title along with Death by Devil's Breath (from the Chili Con Carnage series). I loved this book! I love the main character, Bea, and the Halloween exploits along with the ghost hunters in the story make it perfect for the season. You'll want to read all the books in the series - they don't have to be read in order, but it helps. There are a few longer series arcs that I want to know more about, but I have confidence they will be addressed sooner or later.
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Fantastic cozy!
I had not read any previous books in the series, so as a standalone for me, it was just fine. I didn't feel I was missing anything as the author did a great job filling you in when appropriate. Just enough info each time and not dragging it out.
I loved the town, its people and the amateur murder investigation.
I would love to read more in the series!
This was a great Halloween read! -
I loved the cozy mystery story and the headless ghost. I have always enjoyed the Legend of Sleepy Hollow and enjoyed all the referrals to it in the book. I am really getting to know the Literary Ladies and they are a fun loving group of ladies that trouble seems to find.
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A fun read - - ghost hunters, a headless ghost and a murder - - who dunnit?
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Ghost story lovers really want to find a legend that is real. None so much as the EGG-heads. A reality based group on television has returned to South Bass Island, north of Ohio, to try and recapture the apparition they caught the year before...The headless Sleepy Harlow.
Staying at Bea & Bees, Bea's bed and breakfast, the team is pretty overwhelming. Not just the overbearing head of the group but even the poor overlooked intern that has to stay at neighboring Chandra's house.
The League of Literary Ladies, now friends, Bea, Kate, Chandra, and Luella, and headed by Marianne Littlejohn are busy reading the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Halloween is a huge party on the Island and also perfect ghost hunting season.
However, discord hits when Noreen Turner, boss lady of the Egg's decides she will film at Kate's Winery, where she first caught the image of the ghost. Kate has decided otherwise..no way. Loud voices and threats are thrown around but when Hank, the Chief of Police appears, everyone goes to their 'corners' and the situation appears controlled...until Noreen is found dead in a casket.
Suspicion falls upon Kate and Bea works hard to prove her innocence and whether or not the ghost is real...if he is...could he have killed Noreen?
This was a great tale. The story interweaves and keeps you turning the pages. A great book to read. -
A great seasonal read, a murder, ghost hunters, a headless ghost, a devious cat and Chandra. Halloween in a nutshell!
It was difficult to rate this one, so I'll settle on 3.5 stars. This one was on par with the first book of the series, once I got into it, I couldn't put it down. Light and entertaining, there's just something irresistible with this series.
The plot wanders a bit in the middle or so, especially the secondary plot (which I guess isn't so secondary, since it takes most of the book.) The characters need a little more development, sometimes I forget who's who because they don't stand out in my mind. -
Excellent! Still not as good as the first book, but an excellent read nonetheless. I thought the murderer was telegraphed early on, so in spite of a large number of suspects, the reveal wasn't a surprise. But the sub-plot involving Sleepy Harlow's life more than made up for any deficiencies in the murder plot. My only real complaint is the author is being too stingy with Levi's details. I appreciate stringing out the tension, but it's going to backfire if there aren't some satisfying details shared soon.
Full review:
http://jenn.booklikes.com/post/103827... -
Fun Halloween read. Wonderful contemporary of Sleepy Hollow. I usually read Sleepy Hollow every Halloween but this year I read Sleepy Harlow. I really loved this spin on the classic tale.
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A fun read in homage to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. I liked the bootlegging angle in the mystery. I also enjoyed finding the "truth" behind the ghost hunters. I did not see who the murderer was until the end when it was explained. I love these ladies and Jerry Garcia. A perfect read for these cold nights.
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I'll give this 3 stars since it was about Halloween, but other than that I wasn't impressed. The main character is a major chump. A neighbor's cat pees on a manuscript she's proofreading, so she decides to completely rewrite the book on her own instead of telling her. It's not her fault it got ruined and that the idiot didn't save a backup.
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Another fun book in this series. Even though the ladies weren't reading Agatha Christie in this book, the ending was Poirotesque in nature. Again, the story partially mirrored they book they are reading, so the island has a "headless" ghost of a dead gangster/bootlegger. Nice surprise to Sleepy's story at the end. The moral is - chasing fame can get you killed.
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For complete review check out my blog at
https://booksaplentybookreviews.blogs... -
Loved another one! This one had ghost hunters, local ghost legends, some love interests and I loved it!
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This review was originally posted on Backchatting Books
The League of Literary Ladies have picked the classic tale The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to read and life soon starts to imitate art with the South Bass Island equivalent, bootlegger Charlie "Sleepy" Harlow making his presence felt. Bea Cartwright gets drawn into the drama when a particularly unpleasant member of the Elkhart Ghost Getters (EGG) gets herself murdered and fellow literary lady, Kate, becomes a suspect.
The emphasis is very squarely on Bea now with the other literary ladies essentially relegated to the back bench. She's an engaging protagonist which makes this a little easier but I missed the lively interactions she had with the ladies in the previous books. Bea's relationship with love interest Levi instead takes the spotlight and they spend much of the novel dithering about their feelings for each other. It's a shame that despite all the page time dedicated to this, there was so little resolution.
The book is really two plots in one with the mystery of Sleepy Harlow and the murder of Noreen. Bea's link to the latter works neatly as Noreen and the other EGGs are staying at her inn. The Sleepy investigation though is a little tenuous as a cat peed on the manuscript that a friend asked her to read and rather than confess that it was ruined, Bea tries to recreate the book. The fragments of the book that she can read give her hints on where to go next but as most people can recognise their own writing, her attempt seemed a bit naive.
I enjoyed the Sleepy Harlow section far more than the contemporary one as Noreen was such an unpleasant person - the mystery ought to have been why she hadn't been knocked off earlier. I pegged who the murderer would be before the murder actually took place just going by the characters' personalities but had no idea of the motive until towards the end. Bea solves both mysteries by doing hours of research on the internet but it was impossible to follow in her footsteps as we don't know what she looked up until the big reveal. There are a range of nicely placed red herrings along the way to try to keep the identity of the murderer hidden but for them to have been really effective, either more suspects had to have the opportunity to commit the crime or the ones that did needed to have a stronger motive.
Unfortunately I didn't enjoy this novel as much as the other two in the series. All the elements of a good cozy mystery were there but they didn't come together the way I hoped they would. -
I like this series, I follow them but truth be told I haven't fallen in love with them.
I really liked the first book it was really entertaining. This book kinda hit a plateau as far as the life of the characters beyond the actual mystery. Chandra is still umm... quirky and slightly certified insane; Bea host's the enemy unknowingly, is still awkwardly denying a relationship/mutual attractions to Levi and says she won't but will solve a case ;Kate is still her lovely self although she goes through a battlefield of emotions considering she's prime suspect in a murder and lastly Luella is still the grounding the group in it's bit of chaos though it seems she's not around much.
Here's what I liked... the actual legend of Sleepy Hollow. I thought it was kinda interesting mystery wise and I like the way it connected back to the present. Some of the EGG was boring and seemed repetitive (possibly because I found it boring). It also seemed like the book was disjointed a lot. The ladies weren't together a lot and Bea was talking to her EGGs solo for the case and Kate was in hiding basically. Do you blame her? It didn't seem to flow cohesively even when the girls were together...
So while I semi like the series I don't think I'll be reading this one again. -
I had a harder time getting into this one than previous books in the series or by this author. Despite, that, I was liking the story -- right up until the end when the author seemed to forget where the body was found. Without giving away too much of the plot, the body is found at Point A, the murder weapon Point B. These facts come up throughout the story. Then suddenly in chapters 18 and 19 (out of 20), she keeps saying the body was found at Point B with the weapon. No. NONONONONO. The one thing an author should remember is where and how the body was found. As this is an integral part of the plot, I cannot in good consciousness award high marks for the overall product. This is the type of error that should have been caught and fixed in editing. I admit to being a bit surprised that, in skimming comments on the book, only one other person seemed to pick up on this major error, remarked on it, and downgraded it as I did. I can only hope the next book is better.
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The Elkhart Ghost Getters are back on Put-in-Bay much to the horror of the islanders. This doesn't
Deter their nasty leader,Noreen. Hellbent on finding the ghost of headless Sleepy Harlow it is Noreen who turns up dead. Fun read with some interesting twists. Bea, the headstrong owner of Bea and Bees, is a solid character. There were a few things that bothered me about repetitiveness and over sharing that I didn't give it four stars. But I would read more of the series for the main character. For those who like Halloween themed mysteries. -
I kind of enjoyed this book. The ghost hunting aspect at Halloween was fun, and I love seasonal mysteries.
I did have a few quibbles. The idea that she could reconstruct an academic manuscript and Marianne wouldn't notice was absurd. Also, I thought it was pretty sleazy that she went into the rooms of her guests looking for things and then later put cameras into their rooms. I found all of that a bit problematic. The ends don't justify the means IMHO.
Lastly, I thought the dramatic reveal at an invite only party was completely unnecessary.
