Purranormal Activity by Cate Conte

Item: Purranormal Activity
Rating: 5
Author: karenbaron

Posted July 21, 2026 by karenbaron in #SummerReadsWithTheBaroness, Mystery, Review, Series / 0 Comments

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Purranormal Activity

by Cate Conte

Series: Cat Cafe Mysteries #10
Series Rating:

Published by Minotaur Books on July 28, 2026
Setting: Daybreak Island, Massachusetts
Genres: Cozy Culinary Animal Mystery
Pages: 301
Format: Kindle, Paperback
Source: NetGalley
Goodreads
Bookhype
BookBub
Storygraph
Get Your Copy at: Amazon
Also in this series: Shock and Paw, Claws Out

Trouble is brewing on Daybreak Island. . .

Summer is in full swing on Daybreak Island, and JJ’s House of Purrs―and the new mobile cat café―has Maddie James running nonstop with on-site cat parties.

So when Olivia McAllister, her mother’s childhood best friend, returns to the island for the first time in decades―after a family tragedy drove her away―and asks Maddie to plan a birthday party for her granddaughter, Maddie happily agrees. It’s been forty years since Olivia’s aunt, Delia McAllister, vanished without a trace. Her disappearance was never solved, and the abandoned family house has loomed over the island ever since.

But when Maddie and her mom arrive at Delia’s old house, it’s empty―except for a white-and-gray cat that leads Maddie to a hidden room. There, she finds Olivia dead.

Soon Maddie learns the mysterious cat may be tied to a ghostly island legend. And as she digs deeper, she realizes she’s unraveling two disappearances, forty years apart―while someone is desperate to keep the truth buried.

Purranormal Activity by Cate Conte tells the story about how one tragedy helps to solve another.

How will Maddie solve two cases that are forty years apart?

Maddie James and the rest of the Daybreak Islanders have been enjoying the summer months so far. The island is hopping with tourists, which is great for all the businesses, especially Maddie James with the new job venture of running a mobile cat cafe for parties. JJ’s House of Purrs has been booming, and a lot of people are excited about the mobile cat cafe. Maddie and her family are always fun to get back into. Maddie, her grandpa, and her sister are always fun to read about as they solve mysteries.

The Mysteries

Maddie James gets a call from Olivia McAllister to host her granddaughter’s birthday party with the mobile cat cafe on Saturday. Well, Maddie wasn’t too happy about it, but she said yes. Maddie then regrets it when she finds Olivia murdered in her family’s house when she went to scope the place out with her mom. She is determined to solve this one and keep her mom out of jail because the police think that she did it. After all, she is holding a grudge. The grudge is about her family leaving the island forty years ago after Delia McAllister went missing. Maddie thinks that maybe the two are connected the further she gets into investigating. Are they really, though?

I was stumped on this one, but I had a hunch about who could have done it. Ms. Conte almost got me.

Five Stars

My rating for Purranormal Activity by Cate Conte is five stars. I do recommend this series as I always have a great laugh with these characters. JJ is such a hoot, even though this time he didn’t have that much involvement in the mystery. I think it was because he was busy entertaining Olivia’s granddaughter and the other kids. Ms. Conte is such a brilliant author that I always feel like I’m right there on the island with Maddie solving the mystery.

Cat Cafe Mysteries

Thank you for dropping by! I hope you enjoyed this review of Purranormal Activity by Cate Conte.

Until the next time,

Happy Reading!

Baroness’ Book Trove is an Amazon affiliate, meaning that if you click the link and purchase something, this blog gets a tiny percentage back. Mainly, this helps cover the website costs and a few giveaways.

About Cate Conte

Cate Conte writes the Cat Cafe Mysteries and the Full Moon Mysteries. As Liz Mugavero, she writes the Pawsitively Organic Mysteries, the first of which was an Agatha Award nominee for Best First Novel. She lives in Connecticut with her rescue pals.

^got from her Bookbub

Reading this book contributed to these challenges: