So far the book is good. but the story arc of having the main female character torn between the slightly aloof straight laced cop and the evident high-profile-bad-boy is rather tired d ( )

Mystery with preachy wiccan, New Age ideas ( )

A bright spot in my year of new (to me) authors! Fun, lighthearted, and entertaining. ( )

Oh my, Maggie Scaredy-Cat has gone backwards to being a very stoopid Dumb-Bunny again.

The church is planning an expansion...as the ground caves in a buried chamber littered with animal bones and covered with crosses is unearthed.

When Maggie allows the kidlets to make a Ouija board and use it after the opening of the buried chamber the spirit of Elias, attaches itself to Maggie. But of course, she misinterprets all of the messages.

After helping clear out the house, Maggie's sister Mel spreads the gossip about "witches" to Maggie's high school rival (husband owns the local newspaper) and as soon as the news hits the special edition the town begins to turn against Felicity, Maggie & the Enchantments Shoppe.

Tara needs a Major Attitude Adjustment, she is just plain Nasty to the women who have saved her bacon and I find her very irritating, especially since not one of the adults will put her in her place. The Last thing this series needs is a negative snarky adolescent...

The cop who is supposed to be "into" Maggie is dating on the side and is still trying to run Maggie's life.

However...Maggie does finally stand up to her mother.

The story was easy to decipher, for me there was No "Mystery". The clues are very plain and clear as daylight.

I believe this is a mediocre series at best. I believe that with some effort that Madelyn Alt could do so much more with her characters and plots.

I am very disappointed.


( )

Where There's a Witch is my second bewitching mystery. I'm afraid one of the Ouija messages kept going over my head, but I had an unfair advantage in guessing the killer anyway. The description of what must have been the murder weapon matches an item we have in our home.

I haven't read book four, but it seems that Maggie's self-centered sister, Mel, blabbed about Liss, Marcus, and the N.I.G.H.T.S (the Northeastern Indiana Ghost Hunting and Tracking Society) in the last book. What's worse, Mel did it after they'd done her a great service. The fallout from Mel's loose lips is a major subplot of this book.

Yes, things have been going wrong among the citizens of Stony Mill, Indiana for months now, but I'm more likely to attribute it to the darkness in the hearts of the self-righteous members of the First Evangelical Church of Light creating an opening for evil entities to move in. Sadly, Stony Mill is a conservative small town. Among the persons with false ideas about Wiccans are the mothers of Maggie and young Evie, much to their daughters' distress.

I haven't read books one or two, either, so I don't know for sure what Father Tom, the priest at the Catholic church Maggie has stopped attending, did. From the hints dropped here, he should have been ousted from his position. (I remember how our priest thundered that those pedophile priests were EVIL when the scandal first broke. I personally refused to watch televised Masses featuring he-never-deserved-to-be-the-Vicar-of-Christ-after-his-betrayal Benedict XVI. I had no respect for him then and none now.) What a pity that Maggie's mother defends Father Tom. I wish Maggie would tell her outright that she's not going to attend Mass at their church until they get a priest worthy of the office.

As for the Ouija messages, it's high school students Tara and Evie who are using it. Maggie doesn't want to, but they talk her into it. They do get some useful information, though. It might have been more useful if the ghost could spell better.

The finding of a forgotten room turned out not to be what I expected, but still interesting. I'll cut Maggie some slack for not putting some clues together sooner because she's got the anti-witch campaign, nagging mom, and jerk Deputy Fielding problems on her mind.

Pardon my chortle, but a phone conversation Liss has in this book makes me suspect that a possibility from book three will eventually come to pass.
(Same first initial, too, heh heh.)

Cat lovers, the black cat on the cover is no longer a cheat. Minnie is a dear little kitten.

Now that I've read the two books that came my way, I want to read the rest. ( )