Title: Wedding Day Brews
Author: Bella Colby
Date: 2023
Publisher: Beresford
ISBN: 978-1-913422-14-1
Quote: "My dog was talking to me. To passers-by it sounds like he whines a lot, but I understand every word he says."
Skye, a Scottish witch or psychic as seen on "Charmed," had mixed feelings about returning to the British coastal town that caught her eye. After her divorce she'd become involved with an environmentalist group but the terms of having charges dropped, after she helped sink a ship, specified that she stay in the UK for two years. She'll need a job, of course. Applying for the first job she's told about, she's passed over in favor of somebody's obnoxious niece, then finds the said niece dead in the parking lot.
Skye has been to witch school but used only one spell even there. She'll use her spell, and rely on protection by her familiar dog, while solving the mystery but she will use logic, not magic, to find out whodunit. It's a fairly short, simple plot; if you guess whodunit (I did), there's still the suspense of finding out how Skye can prove it.
This series was published in Britain before ChatGPT, and is much better written than the series-opening short mysteries I've been receiving since. I don't think Colby is really trying to write like Joan Aiken, Mary Stewart, or Peter Dickinson, but her voice may appeal to people who miss theirs.
No comments:
Post a Comment