The Ghost Moon Tide by Taffy Beach: An Honest ARC Review

Read time: 4 minutes

📱📖 Read on Kindle 📃 257 pages, reading time: 4 hours | 🗓️ ARC provided by the author
Expected publication: September 14, 2026 🏷️ Twitching Whiskers Press
Genre: Paranormal Cozy Mystery

Book Blurb:

It’s October 1998, and Manatee Bay’s brand-new Spooks and Spirits Festival brings Halloween, Samhain, and the Day of the Dead together under a rare Ghost Moon. But when a late-season hurricane exposes a decades-old skeleton, and the lighthouse ghost appears again just as she has for more than fifty years, the town’s Prohibition-era secrets start clawing their way back to the surface. A playful séance turns chilling, an outsider’s arrival sparks deadly consequences, and amateur detective Kate finds herself caught between buried secrets and fresh bloodshed, with Police Chief Tom close behind. In Manatee Bay, when the law falls short, the tide has its own way of evening the score. Book two in the Manatee Bay Cozy Mystery series.

Let’s talk … murder!!!

I thoroughly enjoyed the concept of this book. Having a ghost and real murders, and connecting both of those during a Halloween festival, was beautiful. Yes, it is a bit clichéd, but when clichés work, you don’t question the process. This one worked for me, and I am sticking with my opinion.

The book follows the Manatee Bay story, told this time from multiple points of view. That keeps things changing and keeps you on your toes. If you’ve read the first book (my review here in case you haven’t), you’ll recognize a few faces who play prominent roles again: Kate, our amateur detective, her friend Cindy, her dad Jaime, Tom Harrison the Police Chief, and Buddy Watson the cop. We also get a slice of Adelaide Wade, Kate’s grandmother, who brings her own mystery into the middle of all this, though it plays out more like a mystery-in-history lesson.

What multiple POVs do so well is give you the mystery from every angle, a well-rounded perspective that rewards readers who like to piece things together before the ending. I couldn’t identify the killer until the final reveal myself, though you might get there sooner than I did.

A few scenes could have played out differently. Some combinations of prose and dialogue made me want to shift the balance a bit, and a couple of moments could have felt more natural in the flow. But these are minutiae, individual preferences more than anything else. I was engaged enough to read through the entire book in one sitting (four hours is a long time to sit still, when you think back on it).

I can’t wait to see where Taffy Beach takes us the next time I visit Manatee Bay.

Would I recommend it?

The concept alone makes The Ghost Moon Tide worth picking up. A Ghost Moon binding three holiday traditions together while an old Prohibition-era secret claws back to the surface is one of the stronger hooks I’ve come across in the genre this year, and the mystery kept me guessing right up to the reveal. I’m genuinely invested in where this series goes next.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

If you liked this, try these next

• Southern Spirits by Angie Fox — If Manatee Bay’s lighthouse ghost worked for you, this one gives you a ghost with a lot more attitude: a 1920s gangster spirit haunting a historic Tennessee estate, tangled up in a decades-old murder that mirrors The Ghost Moon Tide’s buried-secret backbone.
  Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy
• The Ghost of Halloween Past by Bobbi Holmes — For readers who want to stay in the Halloween mood a little longer, this one leans fully into the season with its own small-town haunted history and a ghost who isn’t going anywhere.
  Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy
• Murder in G Major by Alexia Gordon — If the Adelaide Wade thread was your favorite part, this series scratches a similar itch: a ghost with unfinished business, a small town holding onto old secrets, and a mystery that only gets untangled by digging into the past.
  Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy
• Sense and Scent Ability by Renee George — Kate’s amateur-sleuth energy pairs well with Nora Black, a fifty-one-year-old salon owner with a psychic gift and zero patience for being told to stay out of it.
  Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary
• By Book or By Crook by Eva Gates — Another coastal setting with its own lighthouse at the center of things, if the Manatee Bay lighthouse legend was a favorite piece of the atmosphere for you.
  Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy

Solved It Already? Let’s Compare Notes

Did you figure out who was behind it before the final reveal, or did Manatee Bay keep you guessing the whole way through? I’m genuinely curious whether the multiple POVs gave it away for you faster than they did for me. Drop your theories (keep it spoiler-free for the folks still reading) in the comments, I want to know who cracked the case first.

Book Links:

Want to purchase this or any of your favorite books while supporting a local bookstore? Consider purchasing using the sites below. These sites work with independent local bookstore owners to fulfill your book orders. #SupportLocal

Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Hardcover | OpenLibrary | Litsy
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