Series review: Daisy Gumm Majesty series by Alice Duncan

I am a huge fan of the Daisy Gumm Majesty series by Alice Duncan.  It’s a cozy series, featuring Daisy as a medium, who, even though she isn’t really connecting with the afterlife (or is she?), still somehow manages to give comfort to the rich Pasadena folks who pay her to hold séances.  And, of course, she also manages to solve the murders that crop up in each book.

But, although the series is definitely on the light-hearted side, Duncan also slips a little something to think about into most of the books, whether it’s Daisy’s husband, who suffers from his injuries in WWI (and also what we would call PTSD today), or racism, or homosexuality, or even just the difficulties experienced by women who worked in the 1920s.  And for me, these little bits take the books up a notch, and keep this from being just another cozy series.   I’m also a teeny bit biased, because I lived in Pasadena in the 1970s and 1980s, and so the setting really resonates with me.  I think most folks will enjoy it though – Duncan’s descriptions of the town and its history really build a sense of time and place, and are also spot-on, as far as I can tell (and I lived there for more than a decade).       

One final nice thing about the series is that most of the books in the series go on sale pretty often, including some box sets that sometimes drop as low as $0.99 for a set of three.    So if you like it, and are patient, you can eventually read most of the series without spending a lot of money.  The series is also available from Kindle Unlimited, so if you have a KU subscription, you don’t have to be patient – you can binge read it for free!   Right now, though, the first box set in the series is on sale for $0.99/£0.82 in the US and UK, the second box set is on sale only in the UK (at least as of now, May 2, 2021), and the first book is also on sale by itself, although I have no idea why you’d buy just the first book when you can get the first three for the same price!

Daisy Gumm Majesty Boxset 1, contains Strong Spirits, Fine Spirits, and High Spirits: buy at Kindle US | Kindle UK
Daisy Gumm Majesty Boxset 2, contains Hungry Spirits, Genteel Spirits, and Ancient Spirits: buy at Kindle UK
Strong Spirits, book 1 in the series: buy at Kindle US | Kindle UK