In the Company of Witches by Auralee Wallace
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

**3.5-stars rounded up**

In the Company of Witches, the first book in Auralee Wallace’s new Evenfall Witches series, is the Practical Magic of Cozy Mysteries. A delightful series starter!!

After the tragic loss of her husband, Brynn Warren moves into the B&B owned by her Aunts, Nora and Izzy, ostensibly to help them run the place.

Warren women have been a staple of the small town of Evenfall for over four hundred years. Although there are whisperings of them being witches, the townsfolk don’t actually have any proof of that.

When a local woman, staying at the B&B while her home undergoes some renovations, is found dead, the Warren women are thrown for a loop.

Not only is it upsetting that Constance Graves died inside their home, but it seems Nora is now the authorities number one suspect. That’s right, they suspect foul play. Constance was murdered.

Further, you know those suspicions the townsfolk have about the Warrens? Yeah, they’re true.

Brynn is a witch of the dead, meaning she can commune with ghosts. In order to clear her Aunt’s name, she may need to contact Constance’s ghost and find out what really happened to her.

Unfortunately, since her husband passed, Brynn has had a really hard time using her powers. Thus, a bit of old fashioned investigation will have to be incorporated into her mission to help Nora.

Brynn discovers a whole host of family secrets and drama as she dives into Constance’s past in order to figure out who would have had the motive to kill her.

Y’all, this was a great start to an all new Cozy series. I really enjoyed getting to know Brynn, Nora, Izzy, Gideon and all the other citizens of Evenfall.

I find with Cozies, the longer the series goes on, the more attached you get to the characters and place. I have no doubt this series will be the same.

The next book, When the Crow’s Away, is expected to be published in April 2022. I cannot wait to get my hands on it. Thank you so much to the publisher, Berkley Books, for providing me with a copy to read and review.

If you love Cozy Mysteries, or Witchy stories, you absolutely should check this one out. Pure fun from beginning to end.

View all my reviews

One of Our Own by Jane Haddam
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I received my ARC copy of One of Our Own, by Jane Haddam, I was elated, but it was also bittersweet.

This is the 30th, and final book, of her beloved, Gregor Demarkian series. The author, Orania Papazoglou, writing under the pen name of Jane Haddam, unfortunately lost her battle with cancer in July of 2019.

Prior to this novel, I have read nine other books in this series; the first eight, and then I read Bleeding Hearts, number eleven in the series, because it sounded so interesting.

I really enjoyed them all. A lot of the earlier books in the series were holiday-themed, which I always love in my Cozies.

The main protagonist of this series is, Gregor Demarkian, an Armenian-American, ex-FBI Agent, who consults with local police departments on bizarre and compelling cases.

Gregor lives on Cavanaugh Street in Philadelphia, which is essentially an Armenian-American enclave. Over the course of the series you get to know the various characters in his community and it’s really a lot of fun!

With this novel, from the start, it felt a little different. I commented early on that it felt choppy. The author did not have the chance to finish this one herself, it was actually completed by her sons; seriously, what an honor.

I wonder, however, if perhaps she didn’t have the chance to go through final edits on this if that was the case. The Prologue in particular, for me, felt like she wrote a framework of how she wanted it to go and planned to go in and smooth it out at a later time, but never had the chance?

Obviously, I have no way of knowing what the exact process of getting this novel ready for print was, but it did feel different than her earlier work.

Additionally, there was some content in here that made me uncomfortable. There’s a big focus on immigrants and immigrant populations throughout the novel.

Basically, you have a neighborhood that is shifting. For example, one building that might have once been filled with German immigrants is now filled with Spanish immigrants. So, you have characters that are feeling affected by those shifts. As a reader, you get a lot of their thinking, or even ranting, about these new communities.

For me, I felt like while that is a valid topic to examine if your setting is a vibrant city like, Philadelphia, and that I understand you will have community members who will feel very passionately about the topic, I still felt like the content could have been handled with a bit more care.

There was a lot of stereotypes being thrown about and not until the very end did I feel like they were challenged at all.

The narrative did come full circle on that topic; I am happy with how it ended up, but there were a few characters getting there that were downright vile. I just wish at least Gregor would have put up a challenge to what they were saying.

The mystery itself was interesting, although it did wrap up rather quickly. I love Gregor, and his now wife, novelist, Bennis Hannaford.

Overall, this is a good novel, but I would definitely recommend starting with the earlier books in the series. In fact, the first book in the series is Christmas themed, so perfect timing!

I am really going to miss Gregor, Bennis, Tibor and the rest of Cavanaugh Street, but luckily, I still have twenty more books in the series I can pick up!

Thank you so much to the publisher, St. Martin’s Press, for providing me with a copy of this to read and review. I appreciate the opportunity.

My deepest condolences to her sons. Their Afterword brought me to tears. Orania sounds like an amazing woman, she certainly left a legacy with her work and will be missed.

View all my reviews