Tag Archives: magic

Book Review of Pretty Witches All in a Row, by Lisa Olsen

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All the Pretty Witches all in a RowI snagged a copy of Lisa Olsen‘s Pretty Witches All in a Row from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
Someone is picking off a coven of witches one by one. Can Sgt. Nick Gibson and his team of detectives catch the killer before he loses the pretty witch who’s got him under her spell?

Nick must cast aside his disbelief and delve into the world of the supernatural to solve the case. On hand to help is Annaliese, a member of the coven who claims to have had a prophetic dream at the exact time of each victim’s death, offering clues to the identity of the killer. Can he accept the ‘proof’ offered by unconventional means or is she deliberately leading him astray to hide her own secrets? To cloud the issue, a local evangelist is telling anyone who asks that the victims had it coming. Is religious mania the motive for murder, or is it something more personal?

Review:
This was a pleasant little read. It kept me occupied for an evening, which was all I was asking of it. I liked the main characters (though I did find Nick’s endless banter juvenile). They weren’t all that well defined. Everyone’s past stays murky. For example, something apparently happened in LA that undermined Nick’s trust in his daughter and prompted them to move to Portland, but the reader never learns what it is. Nor do you learn how Annaliese came to practice Wicca or much of anything about the coven members, etc. Everything is kept fairly shallow. Similarly, all of the side characters are mere cut outs, with no depth.

The police procedure part of the book was a mess. It was fun to read, but I had to suspend A LOT of disbelief to roll with it. Nick broke just about every rule in the book (contaminating evidence, removing evidence without permission, releasing confidential information, taking a civilian into a crime scene, fabricating statements, etc), which didn’t really match his otherwise good cop persona. Again, it was amusing but by no means believable.

Honestly, the mystery wasn’t that hard to figure out. Let’s face it; the vilification of the aged is so common that as soon as I see one old woman amidst a cast of younger ones I can pinpoint the villain instantly. The book did provide a red herring or two, to make the reader doubt the obvious, but they were weak to say the least. It’s pretty obvious who is behind everything and even why.

So, final thoughts…a fun read, but not topping any Best Of lists for me

Book Review of The Flower Bowl Spell, by Olivia Boler

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The Flower Bowl SpellI grabbed a copy of Olivia Boler‘s The Flower Bowl Spell from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting, it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
Journalist Memphis Zhang isn’t ashamed of her Wiccan upbringing—in fact, she’s proud to be one of a few Chinese American witches in San Francisco, and maybe the world. Unlike the well-meaning but basically powerless Wiccans in her disbanded coven, Memphis can see fairies, read auras, and cast spells that actually work—even though she concocts them with ingredients like Nutella and antiperspirant. Yet after a friend she tries to protect is brutally killed, Memphis, full of guilt, abandons magick to lead a “normal” life. The appearance, however, of her dead friend’s sexy rock star brother—as well as a fairy in a subway tunnel—suggest that magick is not done with her. Reluctantly, Memphis finds herself dragged back into the world of urban magick, trying to stop a power-hungry witch from using the dangerous Flower Bowl Spell and killing the people Memphis loves—and maybe even Memphis herself.

Review:
A fun quick read, of the light and fluffy variety.

I had a hard time getting into The Flower Bowl Spell. Things seemed to drag a bit in the beginning. There was a lot of time dedicated to things like dinner or describing things, but once the mystery presented itself the pace really picked up. What’s more, Memphis’ voice, the one she’d been establishing in her semi-rants and sarcastic descriptions of things easily morphed into a slightly panicked, fairly harried one that fit the plot wonderfully. She is a delightful character.

I enjoyed that the mystery kept me guessing up until the end. However, I do think the resolution came about a little too easily and the book ended with questions still unanswered. It wasn’t a cliffhanger or anything, there were just some things that Memphis and therefore the reader never learned the answer to.

All in all, I had a lot of fun with this one. The writing was sharp, the humour witty and the editing good. I’ll be keeping my eyes open for more of Ms. Boler’s works.

Book Review of A Charming Crime (Magical Cure Mystery, #1) , by Tonya Kappes

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A Charming CrimeI snatched Tonya Kappes‘ A Charming Crime from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting it was still free, maybe even perma-free.

Description from Goodreads:
June Heal has nothing to lose when she relocates her homeopathic cure shop, A Dose of Darla, from the flea market booth in her home town, to a quaint shop in the cozy but unusual little town of Whispering Falls, Kentucky. Or so it seems.

Cures and trouble…

Whispering Falls has a lot of secrets. From talking snow globes to whispering animals not to mention a few sprinkles of fairy dust, June realizes Whispering Falls is more magical than she thought. . .literally.

Magic stirs…

June discovers she was born into a family of psychics, and her homeopathic cures truly are magical. Unfortunately, they are not magical enough to save her from being the number one murder suspect when a member of the community that she had just had a disagreement with shows up face down in the lake with June’s lucky charm in the victim’s grasp.

And troubles double…

Add to that an attraction to her high school best friend, Sheriff Oscar Park and Mr. Prince Charming, her cat, is stealing charms from Belle’s Baubles, June is forced to clear her name in more ways than murder. After all, they don’t have cauldrons in jail.

Review:
This was an all right read. I found it amusing and there were aspects of it I enjoyed—Oscar, for example (though I would have liked him to have had a role comparable to the importance June suggested he had in her life). Plus, the idea of the self-contained village of magical specialists was an interesting one. Unfortunately, as much as I enjoyed some aspects of the book I found myself gnashing my teeth at others.

There were just tons of little things that annoyed me. A mysterious village, 20 minutes away that NO ONE knows about, but isn’t hidden by magic. Why do these people own cars? They apparently don’t actually drive them. The never-ending ding dong supply. The fact that in investigating the murder June repeatedly compromised evidence and didn’t seem to care. The fact that conversations were often clipped and so abbreviated that I wondered why anyone bothered with the visit. The miraculous intuition that provided an endless supply of convenient solutions to plot problems. The onamonapias. The fact that the villagers manipulated June into moving there and then seemed to resent her presence. Why did they bring her then? The fact that the villagers seemed to hide information from her for no apparent reason. The lack of character development. I don’t even know how old June and Oscar are or what they look like. The way fairies were suddenly thrown in toward the end with no previous indication that non-humans lived in this world. The predictable villain who conveniently spills his guts at the least provocation, etc. {Yes, I know those aren’t complete sentences, but you get the point.}

Worst of all though, is that one of my all time biggest literary pet peeve is when characters come into a situation with some glaring social injustice that has withstood the test of time and then says, ‘hey you need to change this’ and everyone cheers and instantly does. Seriously, if it was that simple surely someone living in the village would have done it before now. It’s painfully polly anna and a cheap plot device to make sure a happy ending comes to pass. I really, REALLY hate it when books do this. It’s incredibly arrogant. I mention it because June does just this at the end of the book and I literally groaned.

So, my final call is that while amusing fluff and worth spending a couple hours reading, it could have been better.