4 out of 5 stars.
Greetings! Today I’m hosting a stop on the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour for That Olde White Magick by Sharon Pape. This is the 2nd book in the Abracadabra Mystery series. It was a fun read and I did like it more than the first book in the series.
Purchase Links – Amazon – B&N – Kobo
Synopsis
Kailyn Wilde enjoys running her shop, Abracadabra, in the quaint New York hamlet of New Camel, where she lives with her six cats. Her family’s been here for centuries, and she’d like to keep up the tradition. But the place may never be the same if a big hotel gets built, so she does her civic duty and attends a town meeting along with her aunt Tilly . . . and Merlin. Yes, that Merlin—though he gets introduced to folks as her “distant English cousin.” The wizard is pretty grumpy about being transported here, but there are things about the modern world he doesn’t mind—like pizza.
Kailyn was prepared for a heated debate about the hotel, but she wasn’t expecting murder. When Tilly finds the body of a board member outside the schoolhouse, Kailyn doesn’t want any suspicion cast on the wrong person. She plans to crack this case, even if she has to talk to every living soul in town—plus a few departed ones . .
Review
As I stated above, I definitely enjoyed this book more than the first one. Ms. Pape has definitely started to find her own style of writing and I didn’t have the problem of the first book where it seemed totally disjointed for the first half of the book. This book flowed much more smoothly.
I still love our main characters, Kailyn, Tilly, and Merlin. They’re fun, developed characters and we keep learning more about them as we delve deeper into their lives. In this book, the reason why Kailyn seemed so interested in this case is a bit more logical in my thinking than it was in the first book, which is good. I’m not generally keen on heroines who butt in just for curiosity’s sake. I prefer they have a good reason.
The setting descriptions were slightly better in this book. I found myself more able to imagine Kailyn’s shop and house much better than I could in the first book of the series.
The plot line moved along at a decent pace. I was semi-surprised by the villain. He didn’t enter my mind until just before he was revealed. I did kind of wonder earlier in the book why he was playing such a big role, but it’s a small town and I just figured that yes, while he was semi-central to the case, he wasn’t that important. Boy was I wrong! It was only towards the end that I started to put it together.
I definitely would recommend this book. You don’t even have to read the first book in the series first (though I do recommend it because there is some background information in book one that will make some things easier to understand).
About the Author
Sharon describes her writing career as having two stages. Back in the dark ages, before computers were in every household, she had three paranormal books published. The first one was condensed by Redbook Magazine, the first paperback original they ever condensed. Then life brought her an unexpected challenge, by the name of breast cancer. After treatment she and her oncologist started a not-for-profit to provide information and peer support to breast cancer patients. With the organization up and running, she returned to her first love – writing. This time around she’s been writing cozy mysteries with a paranormal twist. That Olde White Magick
Author Links
Webpage – http://sharonpape.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sharon.pape.94
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbpape
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Valerie's Musings 