Charmed Death

Title: A Charmed Death

Author: Madelyn Alt

Date Finished: October 9, 2011

Personal Book Count: 36 out of 75

Rating: 4 out of 5

Genre/ Subject: mystery/paranormal

First Line: I had been thinking for sometime that things weren't quite right in my little Indiana town.

Why did I pick this book?: second in the series, enjoyed the first so I wanted to give another a try.

Summary and Review: taken from Berkley Prime Crime website-

“Maggie O'Neill was just your average small-town girl, stuck in a dead-end job until she started working at Enchantments, Stony Mill's finest antique shop with a unique mystical secret. Now Maggie is Indiana's newest witch. Learning to cope with her newfound powers is tough enough, but add to that keeping the stock at Enchantments organized, keeping the peace with her somewhat controlling mom, and remembering to tape reruns of her favorite show, Magnum, P.I., and Maggie's got a full plate.

But when a second questionable death occurs a scant two months into her store tenure, she can't turn her thoughts away from all the town gossip about the teenage princess and the mysterious circumstances surrounding the girl's charmed life and death. While the police get caught up in procedure and logic, Maggie uses every trick, charm, and intuition she can summon, with the assistance of her favorite witchy boss Felicity Dow, to get to the heart of this spellbinding murder.”

Ok, I enjoyed this one. Maybe not as much as the first, there were things that rankled me. But it is a cozy, entertaining read. As I was reading, it irritated me when suddenly we were at the doctor for our 'yearly exam'. (girls, you know what I mean?) Did we really need that in the middle of this kind of mystery? If she had to go to the doctors, couldn't it just be a cold or something? I like mysteries for escapism, not to remind me of what I should be doing... And it could be just me (and I know you need it to make the theme work), maybe it's the Christian upbringing I had, but the witch/magick parts tended to give me the heebee-geebees. Not enough to take away from the book, but enough that it would take me momentarily out of the story. It was nice to hear Maggie (the main character) say at one point “I don't know what I believe”. I think that was an appropriate response for book 2. Instead of, you are right, I am a complete convert, and now I know everything. (not mentioning any authors). I liked that it was the type of mystery that dropped clues, so it was possible for the reader to solve, if you were paying attention. As opposed to some (which I don't personally consider REAL mysteries) where the murderer seems to suddenly appear at the end. I like to play a game, where when I have a guess who-done-it, I write the page and date and who I think it is, down on a piece of paper. Then when I am done I see if I am right. This time I guessed on page 230, and I was right. With all that said, I hated the climax/ending. For me it was unrealistic and hard to swallow. But it was not enough to keep me from wanting to read the next one. =D

Have you read this? What were your thoughts on the ending? Do you try and guess the murderer as you read? Tell me, I would like to hear...

Agree? Disagree? Recommendations? Any insights, suggestions, or comments on the book or format, or blog at all are most welcome. If you have read this and/ or review it yourself, please let me know. Can you think of any books like this? Give me a recommendation! =D