Book 12, 2020

[chez_jae]

The Mushroom Mystery by Agnes Lester Brown

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Last night, before bedtime, I finished reading the ebook The Mushroom Mystery by Agnes Lester Brown. It's the first book in the "Whitewood Witches" mystery series, featuring three generations of Whitewood witches who all live in the same house in the small town of Fennelmoore. The story mainly follows Lori Whitewood, who is home helping her family run the shop where they sell homeopathic remedies, but her dream is to go to law school.

When a new highway was built, diverting traffic from Fennelmoore, the tourist dollars dried up. The mayor, however, has a scheme to bring the tourists back to town. He wants to turn Fennelmoore into a theme park, much to the chagrin of most of the remaining inhabitants. However, when a convention of botanists comes to town, the money they spend will help stave off the mayor's theme park planning. While helping with the convention, Lori finds herself spending a lot of time working with Matt. She is attracted to him, but she's wary of getting her heart broken when scientific-minded Matt learns she's a witch. Lori soon has something else to focus on when one of the leading botanists at the convention is murdered. Matt believes the man was killed for a rare specimen of mushroom he'd recently discovered. The local police, however, dismiss the notion and pursue other avenues of investigation. It's up to Lori and Matt, along with Lori's feisty family, to uncover a killer before he gets away with murder.

The story was okaaaay. The villain was fairly easy to guess. I wasn't on board with the Whitewoods' fear of being outed as witches. I mean, who would believe it? And, if they did believe it, this isn't the 1600's, where people were put to death for being witches. I also wasn't on board with how quickly Matt and Lori declared their love for one another. It was like, two weeks from when they first met. Also, the fact that Lori got accepted to attend Harvard Law School and opted not to go, because Matt was going to stay in Fennelmoore did not sit well with me. WTF?

Favorite line: "Who do you think you are, Mulder and Scully?"

Eh, average score.