![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Book 86, 2017
Oct. 8th, 2017 12:30 pmAfter getting the bulk of my chores done this morning, I took the time to finish reading Skirting the Grave by Annette Blair. The book is part of the author's "Vintage Magic" mystery series, featuring vintage clothing connoisseur, fashionista, designer, and psychometric witch Madeira "Maddie" Cutler.
Maddie is being pulled in several different directions with running her shop, Vintage Magic, planning one sister's baby shower, and helping her other sister pull off a successful fund raiser. Now, she's agreed to take on an intern, and there's also the matter of her being torn between two interested, and interesting, men: FBI Agent Nick Jaconetti, and Detective Lytton Werner.
When Maddie goes to the train station to pick up her intern, she comes across the scene of a murder. The victim is identified as Isobel York, the woman Maddie was there to meet. However, later that evening, a woman appears at Maddie's door, claiming to be Isobel. Now Maddie is caught up in the drama of trying to verify live-Isobel's identity, as well as determine the identity of the dead woman. She is joined in this endeavor by Detective Werner and Agent Jaconetti, whose embezzling case seems to be intersecting with the murder. Maddie also gets some help from a trunk of vintage clothing that belonged to Isobel's grandmother, a tough, no nonsense woman who clawed her way out of poverty and will stop at nothing to see her sons succeed.
The story line was certainly intriguing, with not just a pair of twins (Isobel and her sister Giselle), but their cousin, Payton, who could pass for them. Maddie keeps getting visions from the grandmother's clothing, which may provide clues to current events. She is at once pleased and dismayed to be the target of two men's interest, but I confess I didn't like that particular subplot. It felt like she was leading them both on to bolster her own ego.
Favorite line: "...I'm like a cheerleader for my own life choice."
Good book, with plenty of humor to dispel the more morbid parts. Four stars:
****
Maddie is being pulled in several different directions with running her shop, Vintage Magic, planning one sister's baby shower, and helping her other sister pull off a successful fund raiser. Now, she's agreed to take on an intern, and there's also the matter of her being torn between two interested, and interesting, men: FBI Agent Nick Jaconetti, and Detective Lytton Werner.
When Maddie goes to the train station to pick up her intern, she comes across the scene of a murder. The victim is identified as Isobel York, the woman Maddie was there to meet. However, later that evening, a woman appears at Maddie's door, claiming to be Isobel. Now Maddie is caught up in the drama of trying to verify live-Isobel's identity, as well as determine the identity of the dead woman. She is joined in this endeavor by Detective Werner and Agent Jaconetti, whose embezzling case seems to be intersecting with the murder. Maddie also gets some help from a trunk of vintage clothing that belonged to Isobel's grandmother, a tough, no nonsense woman who clawed her way out of poverty and will stop at nothing to see her sons succeed.
The story line was certainly intriguing, with not just a pair of twins (Isobel and her sister Giselle), but their cousin, Payton, who could pass for them. Maddie keeps getting visions from the grandmother's clothing, which may provide clues to current events. She is at once pleased and dismayed to be the target of two men's interest, but I confess I didn't like that particular subplot. It felt like she was leading them both on to bolster her own ego.
Favorite line: "...I'm like a cheerleader for my own life choice."
Good book, with plenty of humor to dispel the more morbid parts. Four stars:
****
