Tonia Brown

I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review and I loved the introverted Otto Waldorf! Hauling Ash is a hilarious story that kept me laughing at what trouble this timid mortician and a ghost could get into! One morning after he had buried his uncle Walter, Otto awoke to find his corpse sitting in his kitchen and drinking black coffee that oozed from his cut neck. His uncle had taken him in when no other relative wanted him and he knew the old man had never wanted children especially the responsibility of a seven year old boy! Eventually, he grew up to marry a woman that cheated on him and he let her take everything in the divorce as he was too timid to stand up for himself. That morning, uncle told him to go to bus station and get a small brown suitcase from locker 6, only in confusion he was given a key to locker 9 that held a black bag filled with one million dollars of a mob boss's drug money instead of the ten thousand from his uncle. Now the mob, the FBI and one scary tall goon is after Walter, Otto and the dog as they set sail on a singles cruise!… (mehr)

Hauling Ash by Tonia Brown

Mortician, Octavious "Otto" Waldorf finds the spirit of his recently deceased Uncle in his kitchen. His Uncle wants Otto to spread his ashes across the Caribbean Sea, promising to give Otto a sizable amount of money. So Otto books passage on a cruise to the Bahamas. But things go wrong and Otto winds up with the wrong bag of money.

He finds out the money belongs to crime boss Tony “Waldorf” Maloney (no relation to Otto), who happens to be on the same cruise. Now Otto has Maloney's hit-man Banjo, and Maloney's lady Penny who will stop at nothing to get his money back. Add to it, the FBI is on the trail of Maloney, they too are on the cruise.

Otto is very likable, he is an average guy, and very lonely. His Uncle Walter is very likable, he was a bit of a loner in real life, but such a funny and outspoken spirit. The plot is original, the characters are well developed. There is an equal amount of action, suspense and laughable moments.

Overall I found Hauling Ash quite enjoyable and feel others will like it as much as I did. I also like the cover, it captures the "Spirit" perfectly. A definite five star read!… (mehr)