I purchased a signed copy of Deadly Curiosities from the author, Gail Z. Martin. 
Some family heirlooms are to die for.
Welcome to Trifles & Folly, a store with a secret. Proprietor Cassidy Kincaide’s psychic gift lets her know the history and magic of an object by touching it. Cassidy and her friends—including Weaver witch Teag and her vampire business partner Sorren—save the world from vengeful ghosts, dark magic, hidden monsters, and things that go bump in the night.
When a trip to a haunted hotel unearths a statue steeped in malevolent power, and a string of murders leads to the abandoned old Navy yard, Cassidy, Teag, and Sorren discover a diabolical plot to unleash a supernatural onslaught on their city.
It’s time for Cassidy and her team to handle the “deadly curiosities” before it’s too late.
This wasn’t bad, per se. I think it just suffers from a lot of first-book symptoms. Characters are introduced throughout, few of whom the reader feels particularly attached to. The setting (Charleston, SC) is a major focus and, at times, overdescribed. All of this slows (and bogs) it down, such that I was often bored.
The logistics of Cassiy’s psychometry also caused boredom. It became repetitive and rote; she touches something and is sucked into a memory over and over and over again, and then relates it to someone else. Now, the reader isn’t forced to sit through a recitation, but the same scene plays out so many times that it loses any impact.
Worse, this is very much lining up to be a `Cassidy and her crew of spunky investigators’ sort of series, and as much as I liked them all well enough (especially Chuck, who you meet toward the end), Sorren—arguably the most interesting character—is perpetually underutilized. He shows up to dispense wisdom and weapons and then fades away again (even when present).
All in all, I didn’t hate it, but I feel kind of ‘meh’ about it.
