The Trouble with Magic (A Bewitching Mystery #1) By: Madelyn Alt

Plot:

Antiques-shop clerk Maggie O’Neill was a little weirded out when she discovered her new boss Felicity was a witch. But when Felicity becomes the suspect in a local murder, Maggie must enlist Felicity’s Wiccan friends for help–and discover her own spellbinding talent.

Review:

The title really should have been The Trouble with Magick. This is not a supernatural book, this is a Wiccan cozy mystery. There’s a huge difference. If you’re looking for magic spells and flashy supernatural fixes then you’ve come to the wrong place. All the magic that is referenced in this book is based on Wiccan beliefs, magick. It’s possible in the next books that changes, but nothing in this book seemed out of the realm of what Wiccans believe.

Set in a small town that is apparently ruled by the Catholic Church, at least that’s how it feels, there’s a lot of bigotry against people with different beliefs and evidently the Wiccans are the only ones that are able to think with open minds. That turns out not to be true in the end and, I’m not sure if the author intended this, Maggie ends up being as close minded as those she is judging.

The killer seemed fairly obvious and I got tired of Maggie trying to force the clues to fit who she thought it was, she was more than a bit pigheaded. Also, for someone that spent a lot of time driving around in her car thinking she didn’t learn a lot.

She currently has two love interest, a police officer and another Wiccan. The police officer comes off as a bigot but for whatever reason Maggie is still really into him. It turns out that he was more than he seemed, but the book just kind of threw that at you at the end, so I’m left wondering if Maggie is a reliable narrator. The second love interest is the nephew of a librarian Maggie knows and uses to get info from, he also apparently was in the military but learned nothing about guns.

It wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but the book was alright and I plan on at least reading the next in the series.

3/5