Publisher: Berkley
Published: December 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-0425268254
Genre: Cozy
Mystery
Format: Print
Obtained via: Publisher
Reviewed by
name and email address: Gina Ginalrmreviews@gmail.com
THREE HEARTS
Three
witches, Olivia, Molly and Elsie, are about to retire. Before they can do that though they need to
find their replacements. But there are
certain rules that even the meekest of witches must follow. They certainly cannot tell their family and
they can’t just walk up to a witch and ask them to join. There are procedures and protocols or they
may bring down the wrath of the council.
Just when they think they have found an ideal candidate though, Olivia
is murdered. Not only is she murdered,
but the council’s messenger has told Molly and Elsie to stay out of it. And Molly cannot really talk to her husband
about it either since he is the lead detective on the case. With their powers diminishing, their friend
dead and being told from both sides to stay away from the murder what are Elsie
and Molly to do?
There
was nothing wrong with the writing in Joyce and Jim Lavene’s SPELL BOOKED, book
1 of their Retired Witches series, I just didn’t care very much for the
characters and the story in general. I
picked it up because the theme – witches retiring and solving mysteries while
doing so – intrigued me. While in their
concurrently written series under the name of J.J. Cook smoothly transitioned
between the two authors, SPELL BOOKED was clearly two different voices and at
times it seemed like one did not know what the other wrote. The whole introduction of the werewolves into
the story read more like they needed to up the word count and went with that
thread rather than enhancing the witch side of the book. I did enjoy the ghost side of the story when
Olivia materialized. And there were some
parts that made me chuckle when a number of witches showed up to give Cassandra
what for. For the most part though I
really had to keep refocusing to stick with the book. I don’t see myself continuing the series at
this point but if you enjoy a quirky book on witches and werewolves this would
be a fun pick for you.
This is an objective review and not an endorsement of
this book.
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