Listen to the Soundtrack
As I write the Spectral Inspector books, I can SEE what's happening. Almost always, it's accompanied by music. So I've compiled a soundtrack for y'all and hope it captures the flavor of the books.
Osgood as She Gets
The Spectral Inspector, Book III
$4.99 – $17.99
Within the mysterious confines of Chicago's Andersonville neighborhood, Prudence Osgood, 45, queer AF, tormented by chronic pain, opioid addiction, and a tempestuous relationship with alcohol, captains The Spectral Inspectors—an ensemble of ghost hunters, each wrestling with their inner ghosts. In Osgood as She Gets, the third installment of The Spectral Inspector series, a sinister phenomenon known as The Graveyard Game emerges, drawing in fearless teenagers who dare to confront their own mortality by gazing into the hooded statue's eyes. As suicides surge, a chilling question arises: Is this disturbing game to blame, or does it have a connection to the elusive North Side Slasher? With time running out, The Spectral Inspectors must unravel the mystery that threatens their beloved city.
Osgood as She Gets delves deep into themes of regret, survivor's guilt, the relentless fight for survival, and the haunting art of letting go. With a tone that balances moments of light-heartedness and warmth with periods of profound introspection and spine-tingling terror, this novel invites you to join Osgood, Audrey, and Zack as they navigate the twisted realms of the supernatural. Can they unearth the truth before the shadows swallow them whole?
Reviewers are calling Osgood as She Gets “A trippy, cosmical joyride grappling with terror, pain, guilt, and bad decisions,” “An engaging and grisly caper,” “deeply chilling, yet profoundly human,” and “A haunting, dream-like urban fantasy that stings and satisfies like a bitter-sweet shot of whiskey,” and main character Prudence Osgood “a protagonist for the ages: bold, brash and absolutely captivating,” “a lovable disaster,” and “the bad habit you didn’t know you needed.” They say of writer Beckett that he “writes with the accessibility and charm of Stephen King, but with the queer knowledge and language to appeal to an often-ignored audience.”
If you MUST purchase it elsewhere...
👻 For Lovers of:
🏳️🌈 Queer Representation
🏳️🌈 Chronical Pain Representation
🏳️🌈 FMC with a cane
🏳️🌈 Paranormal Mysteries
🏳️🌈 Character Focus
⚠️ Triggerwarning: Conversations about Suicide and Self-Harm
Big thanks to the author for gifting me this arc. 🩷
👻𝕎𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕚𝕥'𝕤 𝕒𝕓𝕠𝕦𝕥
Osgood is in pain, lonely and a little bit horny. What's a better distraction than another possibly paranormal case for her crew – the spectral inspectors? And they need to act fast as a dangerous TikTok Trend claims its first victims.
👻𝕎𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕚 𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥
Even though book 3 in a series, it was easy to read as a standalone. What I really liked was the representation in the book, especially of chronic pain as I haven't read about this subject yet. Osgood is a fun but sometimes stressful MC as she's pretty self destructive to say the least. And because I liked her as a person, I wanted her to be happy and make healthy choices 😭 but that again shows how very well she's written.
The author is excellent at focusing on his characters. This also means that the plot takes rather long to evolve. I personally would have enjoyed more action and creepy events in the middle part after the fulminant start.
The sinister Tiktok Trend was a fun and intriguing story element. What I also loved was how the spectral inspectors always tried to debunk the paranormal aspect first instead of just believing it blindly.
All in all a fun but sometimes a little slow ride for me. Osgood is so unique, I wanted to slap and hug her at the same time!!- (but she probably would have liked that 🤭)
Also, I loved the there was artwork related to the story in the ebook. 🔥 That's always a plus!
“No one understands broken people like broken people.”
3.5 Stars A very quirky and odd book that I’m honestly not even sure what I think of it or how to categorise it. Despite being super creepy and dark I found this weirdly comforting to read (not entirely sure what that says about me!) Nicely written and full of energy, I loved the characters- flaws and all.
It’s like you climbed into my brain and described the world as I see it, really bizarre to read.
Really nicely formatted, with lovely trigger warnings and resources at the front, which I believe is always important and definitely necessary for this book. Also some gorgeous pages of artwork scattered throughout the book too.
The dedication honestly broke my heart a little, and that was pretty much the vibe for this book.
“You broken?” asked Remy with a laugh.
Broken. Osgood thought the word apt, and she nodded solemnly.
“Oh, Os,” said Remy, putting her long, manicured fingers on Osgood's arm, “I meant because you just stopped and stared. Not— I don't believe you are broken.”
Lots of LGBT, mental health and neurospicy rep, plus chronic pain/illness. Bi poly mcs.
A lot of mental health/suicide references and explicit descriptions, thoughts and content, and gore. I really liked these aspects but make sure that you’re okay with this before reading this book, definitely could be triggering for some readers.
“But the pain up here?” Osgood leaned on her cane, pointing to her head, then her heart, “And in here? I think it's why I'm me.”
Weirdly YA feeling despite the very mature themes and swearing, definitely kept my attention.
All the joys of preteen discoveries and growing up
peer pressure, and then living with mental and physical health issues.
Takes a very sudden and unexpected dark turn early on and then doesn’t come back up from there, it’s a pretty casually morbid story.
This was a bad idea to start reading read in the dark when I couldn’t sleep.. Creepy as actual fuck.
I read this as a standalone but it feels obvious that I’m missing a lot of info and background, I would recommend reading others first from the sound of it.
I found it not very clear on the setup/point of the book, I had to go back and read the synopsis to figure out what was supposed to be going on.
“She looked happy,” said Audrey.
“So did I” said Osgood.
Characters are supposed to be older but feel like teenagers, but I think that’s intentional and can kind of relate, pretty sure I will also be into my 40s and still thinking of myself as not-an-adult.
THE ENDING — the most brutal cliffhanger and I literally require the next chapter immediately— EVIL.
Four and a half of five crystal balls
Holy shit what a whirlwind that was! I really enjoyed this one and I'm very grateful to Cooper for sending me a free advanced copy. Needless to say, these are my honest opinions of this story.
I love the queer and chronic illness rep, the horror, anticipation and thrill of it all. Add the paranormal to it and you've got a hell of a story. I have not but will be reading books 1 & 2 now. I mean I have to! Can I just say, WTF was that cliffhanger?! I don't know whether to read on and see what happens as chapter 1 of book 4 was included. I kinda wanna to be surprised. Will I change my mind and go ahead? Maybe.
Osgood is a queer, chronically ill paranormal investigator who is facing a slew of s**cides and m**ders in Chicago. With her group the Spectral Inspectors, they are determined to find out what's going on. Is the latest viral trend known as the Graveyard Game behind the deaths? It's gonna be a dangerous and bumpy ride.
While the opening scene was both gripping and shocking and drew me into the story, it was the character of Prudence Osgood (Os) that was the highlight for me. Os is an infuriating hot mess of a character that has a lot of issues including chronic pain, mental health issues and destructive tendencies but she is also a sympathetic character and I couldn’t help but root for her. While at some points the pacing was slow, I think it helped with character and plot development and to really understand the interplay between Os and the other characters. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. This is the third book in the series and I didn’t need to read the first two, but I’m definitely going to now.
My first book read by this author and boy to they go into the deepest depth of details throughout the whole book. Really gives you the whole picture to imagine , though sometimes it went a bit too far into details, to the point where I got so lost, I completely forgot what he was even writing about.
This book was honestly a struggle for me to get through. It could, yes, be a stand-alone book, but I felt like I was missing something with the relationships of the characters. Throughout the whole book, I almost wanted to put it down to read the other 2 and pick back up where I left off. That way, I felt “caught up.”
I did like the very beginning of the book and the very end of the book, the only times where I felt completely in shock with the storyline (in a good way), other then that chapter 2 on was a drag.
Might not have been my cup of tea, but I think it's worth the read for someone else.
Make sure you read the trigger warnings because somethings do get pretty wicked, 😊