Juliet Blackwell

I am absolutely charmed (no pun intended) by this cozy mystery series. I’m not entirely sure why – I don’t find the MC’s supposedly Texan roots at all authentic, I don’t care about vintage clothing, and I generally dislike Romance tropes appearing in my mystery/supernatural genre books. But, still, its just a lot of fun. The MC is vulnerable, trying to settle into her true nature, and struggling to resist the urge to deny her true nature for the sake of making her romantic interest less uncomfortable. She’s actually a very interesting character, and I rarely want to slap her silly. The mystery and settings are interesting, too, and the murders and supernatural elements are surprisingly dark for a cozy. I can’t say the final whodunnit were much of a surprise, but the journey was still worth reading about.

Paperback edition. I think I may like reading these in bound version better than audio, although Xe Sands does a terrific job on the audios.

I read this book for the Booklikes Halloween Bingo 2019, for the square Murder Most Foul: Any murder mystery.… (más)

I was worried that this series was headed toward a death spiral after finishing the prior book, but other readers encouraged me to keep on, and I’m glad I did. This may be the best one yet. Mel is back to her usual acerbic self, she’s shaking off that boring romance with Mr. Too-Perfect-To-Be-Plausible, and she’s back in San Francisco reveling in historic, but not ancient, architecture. The ghosts are a lot more fun, too. I’m glad, because this has so far been the only cozy mystery series that I’ve enjoyed enough to keep forging ahead with. It’s even been worth spending Audible credits on.

Audiobook, via Audible. The performance by Xe Sands is as enjoyable as ever. I read this for the 2018 Halloween Bingo square Cozy Mystery: a subgenre of crime fiction in which sex and violence are downplayed or treated humorously, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community.
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Blackwell’s Haunted Renovation series has long been a favorite of mine, so this witchy mystery series looked promising. It did deliver for the most part, with an interesting mystery in the midst of introducing a new cast of characters and backgrounds. The author does a good job of delivering information without boring info dumps and provides enough clues and red herrings that the solution is neither too obvious nor a cheat. I did feel that it was a little too heavy on the romance and I don’t care for the constant descriptions of whatever outfit the MC is wearing that day, but overall this silly mystery was a very nice break from the more serious mystery and horror I have been reading for the last several weeks.

I read this book for the Booklikes Halloween Bingo 2019, for the square Amateur Sleuth: This mystery will have a main character who is not a member of law enforcement. The main character in this story is a practicing witch who runs a vintage clothing shop.

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This is the first book that I've read in this cozy mystery series that wasn't on audio. I miss Xe Sands, because she always provides a terrific performance. But I'm happy to report that I enjoyed this 4th book in the Haunted Home Renovation series just as much even without the audio.

The MC's "why would anyone find ugly old me attractive" shtick is still annoying, and I'm still unimpressed with the romance, but there is enough fun stuff for this book to rise above those irritants. We get to meet Mel's super-annoying, super-girly sister, we get some new friends and the return of some old friends, and I especially liked getting to know Mel's frenemy Inspector Crawford a little better. We get a couple of new homes from different styles and periods with plenty of loving description.

The mystery is well developed and I was teased with lots of clues and red herrings to sift through. Whodunnit was one of my suspects, but not my favorite, so the reveal worked for me. Oddly, this is the first book where we spend very little time with the dead. The ghosts give little more than a cameo appearance in this book, and I missed them a little.

eBook version, borrowed from my public library.

I read this for the 2018 Halloween Bingo square Amateur Sleuth: this mystery will have a main character who is not a member of law enforcement. The MC, Mel Turner, owns a construction company but somehow finds herself in the midst of a murder mystery, recent or ancient, at every job site. Naturally, she usually manages to solve it before the cops do.
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