5 Hoots
A marvelous spin off of the Hillcrest Witch series. Amorette did a wonderful job giving the reader everything they loved from the original series while giving us something entirely new.
One of my favorite cozy mystery series was the Hillcrest witch series and I was so sad when the series was over. BUT the series ended with Marley opening up a retreat, so I had hope that we would get a spin off and we did! This book starts off on the opening weekend of her wonderful retreat. Things were going well except for the fact that a reviewer was murdered and his ghost demanded that Marley find his killer or else he would have a scathing review of her resort published. So what choice did Marley really have?
The book does have guest appearance from Penny and the rest of her coven, but it was Marley who was the one doing everything she could to solve the mystery. After all, the future of her retreat was hanging in the balance. But this was not just the regular murder mystery, we actually got to find a lot about Marley in this one. We found out what actually happened to her mother and we learned about some of the insecurity Marley had about opening this retreat. She did her best to stay focused and take care of her guests all at the same time. Luckily there was a fairy that was extremely helpful and a Golem that was accidentally created too!
Overall, I really enjoyed seeing the different species (fairies, mermaids, vampires, etc) interact on the earth realm. Marley’s way of investigating is much more organic than Penny’s and I really enjoyed that. And it was fantastic to see Marley using her magic! She was smart and clever with how she lured the killer out into the open. It was a different approach to solving mysteries compared to Penny but I really enjoyed that. I think that if you are looking for a cozy mystery with a witchy touch, this is the book for you!
The Owl's Book Nest 