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REVIEW

"Bewitching amateur sleuth"

Sleepy Stony Mill, Indiana holds many secrets that the majority of the residents are unaware of including Maggie O'Neil but she will shortly find out about one of them and her life will never be the same. She works in a collection agency, a job she hates. One morning instead of going directly to work she feels pulled to heading to town on the road that will lead her to River Street and the exclusive stores there.

It starts pouring so looking for a store that is open she literally falls into Enchantments, an antique shop owned by Felicity Down. Maggie and Felicity hit it off and when Felicity's officers a job, she reveals she is a practicing witch. Maggie doesn't believe in the New Age mumbo jumbo but accepts the job. On her very first day, Felicity gets a call from her estranged sister and leaves Maggie in charge. When Felicity arrives at her sister's house, she finds her sibling murdered. The police believe Felicity is the killer but Maggie believes she is innocent; she intends to find out who the murderer is.

THE TROUBLE WITH MAGIC is a bewitching amateur sleuth tale with touches of the paranormal. Although Maggie wants to deny the existence of ESP she can't convince herself that the voices she hears or the ability to feel other people's emotions are the products of an insane mind. Felicity believes she has talent and drives Maggie into the writer of her group N.I. Ghts (Northeast Indian Ghost Hunting and Tracking Society) since the small town contains spirits only sensitives can feel or hear. There are many suspects with viable motives as Maggie as a loyal friend refuses to let Felicity take the fall for something she didn't do. Forecasting the future, Madelyn Alt has a surefire winner on hands.

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted December 15, 2005

Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted December 15, 2006

SUMMARY

First in the new Bewitching Mystery series!

Closing in on The Big Three-Oh and feeling the pain, struggling small town single girl Maggie O'Neill stands at the crossroads of life. She's spent the majority of her by-and-large uneventful life following the rules laid down by others (society, religion, and, most importantly, her mother) and has depressingly little to show for it. So when a chance meeting brings a job offer from the owner of a fashionably upscale gift shop, Maggie jumps at this unexpected opportunity to bring about a new season of change to her otherwise boring lifestyle. Even the revelation that the owner proclaims herself a modern-day witch doesn't give her much pause. She decides she could use a little magic in her life.

Things get complicated as Maggie begins to experience strange, unexplained occurrences on her own, and she must decide whether to trust her admittedly left-of-center boss and the local ghosthunter group or the mundane teachings of science and society. When her new boss is accused of murder and it becomes painfully clear that this goodhearted witch will never receive a fair shake in conservative Stony Mill, Maggie bravely sets out to learn the truth, for better or for worse. As she locks horns with a suspicious cop, a slick politico, ex-lovers, and the less-than-forthcoming members of the victim's own family, poor Maggie is left to wonder:

How much of what we're allowed to see is real . . . and how much illusion?

Genre: Urban Fantasy, Mystery

 

The Trouble with Magic
(Bewitching Mystery: Book 1)
by Madelyn Alt

Berkley Pub Group
January 1, 2006
Available: January 3, 2006
ISBN #0425207463
EAN #9780425207468
272 pages
Paperback
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Other Books by
Madelyn Alt

A Witch In Time
Where There's a Witch
No Rest for the Wiccan
Hex Marks the Spot
A Charmed Death


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