A Walk on the Darkside by Corinna Underwood

Pearl Blackthorn is a novelist and investigative reporter for Darkside Paranormal magazine.  Armed with her digital recorder and accompanied by her friend and photographer Harry Raymond, Pearl is sent by her editor J.J. Benson-affectionately knows as Benny- to the four corners of Great Britain, (and sometimes further), to investigate stories of spirits and specters, demons, prophecy and possession.  The problem is Pearl doesn't believe in the supernatural; her creative imagination is tempered by a strong skepticism.  She is immovable on her stand that there is always a simple, rational explanation behind every report of paranormal activity.  But Pearl soon realizes that the intricacies of paranormal events are often far from simple and not always rational. This is the first book in the Pearl Blackthorn series.  (taken from the back of the book)

This was a surprisingly fun book!

Each 'chapter' is broken up into individual cases.  It's almost like a bunch of progressing short stories put together.  At the end, there's a Character Confidentials section where the main characters are interviewed.

Though I didn't feel a strong connection with the characters, they are created and developed well enough.  They have many facets yet to be discovered and only hinted at.

For me, the real strength in this book is the way that the 'mysteries' play out.  Each one starts out to be what most people would believe to be paranormal.  Some of them you can guess how it works out not to be, some of them you are clueless on.  What on earth is going on?!  Sometimes I can't figure out Pearl's method of logic, but thankfully she explains it.  Now, here's the tricky part...even the each story so far has a logical explanation...it doesn't explain away all of the paranormal.  While Pearl is searching for evidence of something otherworldly, we're right there with her, seeing everything she sees.  The tricky part is that while she can rationalize some of what she sees, I'm not using the same rationalization.

There's supposed to be a second book in the works and I look forward to reading it.  I was kept in suspense throughout the entire book.  Try as I may, I couldn't figure them all out before Pearl.  I was pretty clueless on all of them until the right clues showed up!