Book 74, 2019

A Murder in Hope's Crossing: Witch's Kitchen Book 1 by Brooke Shelby

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I finished reading A Murder in Hope's Crossing last night. It's the first book in Brooke Shelby's "Witch's Kitchen" mystery series, featuring recently divorced (and recently discovered she's a witch!) Maggie Corey.

After her contentious divorce, Maggie wants a fresh start. At the invitation of her Aunt Clara, she heads to Hope's Crossing, where she will live with Clara and help in her shop, Corey's Herbs and Simples. However, Maggie arrives in town just in time to identify her aunt's body. Clara was murdered, and now suspicion falls on Maggie, since she inherited Clara's home and business. Sheriff Carl Walden questions Maggie but releases her when no evidence of a crime can be found.

In the meantime, Maggie quickly learns that the pious people of Hope's Crossing are determined to snub, shun, and even sneer at her. They claim she is a witch, just like her Aunt Clara. Maggie thinks that's preposterous, until Clara's black cat, Bramble, begins to speak to her. When someone else in town is murdered, and Maggie is once again accused, she knows it's up to her to prove her innocence by revealing the true killer.

Hm. The plot was interesting. Maggie was a likable character, and the author did a wonderful job of creating some truly odious antagonists. However, the writing was overly simple, there was no actual sleuthing on Maggie's part (just a firm belief that she knew who dunnit), and some of the plot points were beyond bizarre. I can see some people in a small town being jerks, but virtually everyone?! Aside from that, I grew weary of the author using some version of 'Maggie shrieked' or 'Maggie screeched' when it seems that words such as 'cried', 'exclaimed', 'gasped' or 'snapped' would have worked better. One would think Maggie was nothing but a shrill shrew with such verbs.

Favorite line: For the first time in a long while she felt just a little important to someone, even if that someone was a cat.

Waffling on a score here. Two and a half stars seems appropriate, but I'll bump it up to three.