📘 Spell Booked
by Joyce & Jim Lavene
Genre Fiction ◦ Cozy mystery
Format & Source Print ◦ For review
Publication Berkley ◦ 2014
Dates Read November 29 – December 12, 2014
Rating ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
📚 What It's About
Spell Booked is the first in the brand new Retired Witches cozy mystery series by writing duo Joyce and Jim Lavene, who have written a number of cozy series. It centers around a trio of witches (Molly, Elsie, and Olivia) who run a magic shop in North Carolina. Now as they are getting older, their magic is beginning to fade and they are dreaming of retirement. To prepare, they must find and train three new witches to pass their spell book onto. Just as plans start to take off, Olivia is found murdered, with her house ransacked and the book stolen. Now Elsie and Molly are determined to find the killer, find the book, and find new witches to train before they lose all their magic.
📝 My Review
This book had me hooked right from the get go with its unique and fun premise of witches who are no longer in their prime and ready to retire. Magic is treated uniquely in this story. The women lead pretty normal lives despite their magical powers, and are unable to tell their other family and friends about their magic. This includes Molly, a longtime wife and mother who has kept her secret hidden for many, many years. I liked that these women seemed like normal people who just so happened to be magic. I liked also that each witch had her own distinct personality and character traits. The witches find themselves in a lot of trouble while trying to solve the mystery on their own, and this, of course, lends to a lot of adventurous mishaps and fun for the reader. All in all, this was a nice start to a new cozy series. It didn’t blow my mind or anything like that, but the mystery was well written and exciting to try and solve. I really enjoyed it quite a bit and will definitely continue on with the series.
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