Bells, Spells, and Murders (A Witch City Mystery, #7)

by Carol J. Perry

Someone’s spreading deadly holiday cheer through Salem, Mass . . .
 
Lee Barrett has landed her dream job at Salem’s WICH-TV. As the new field reporter, she’ll be covering events live as they’re unfolding. Next on her holiday checklist is an interview with the beloved chairman of a popular walking tour through Salem’s historic districts. But it may be his ghost walking this snowy Noel season after Lee finds him murdered in his stately offices, bloody Santa hat askew.
 
With her police detective boyfriend working the case and a witch’s brew of suspects—including some bell-ringing Santas—Lee chases down leads aided and abetted by her wise cat O’Ryan and some unsettling psychic visions of her own. When a revealing clue leads to another dead body, not even a monster blizzard can stop Lee from inching closer to the truth . . . and a scoop that could spell her own demise this killer Christmas.
 
Praise for the Witch City Mysteries

“Perfectly relaxing and readable.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
“This rewarding paranormal cozy series debut will have Victoria Laurie fans lining up to follow.”
—Library Journal
 
“An entertaining story that keeps readers guessing until the very twisted and eerie end.” —RT Book Reviews

• ISBN10: 149671458X
• ISBN13: 9781496714589
• Publish Date: 25 September 2018
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Kensington Publishing
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 384
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/isbn/9781496714589

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

The book suffered on two fronts for me:  the story failed to capture my interest as much as previous books in the series, and the editing was so negligent that it fundamentally affected the plotting.   There's not really much I can say about the story itself; it was average.  A man who runs a vast charitable organisation in Salem Massachusetts is murdered in his office just before Christmas and Lee discovers his body when she arrives for a scheduled interview.  It wasn't the worst I've read, and it wasn't the best.  There never really was any question as to who was behind the crime, although the reveal at the end did have its own surprising twist.   The first indication that the editing was not up to professional standards was the repetition of comments made by the MC:  she tells the reader several times, for example, in almost identical words, that she knew her Corvette was impractical but she just loved it so much. (There was also a lot of brand-name mentions that felt gratuitous that I don't remember from previous books.)     The repetition wasn't so bad, but then the story continuity started breaking indicating, perhaps, major re-writes that didn't get followed up with another thorough proof-reading.  There's a whole scene about Lee writing out her Christmas cards that's specific down to the number of cards: 49 which is followed up by a scene the next day where she stands in line at the post office to mail them, along with her Christmas packages.  Approximately 50 pages later, Lee is telling her Aunt that she hasn't done her Christmas cards yet, and a scene follows where she goes through the whole process again.     Again, annoying but it wasn't until one of the suspects was an electrician, then suddenly he's a plumber, and then he was an electrician and a plumber, and the company names he works for keep getting swapped around.  At that point, I lost any and all faith that the book could recover and just finished it because I was trapped in a salon chair for the last bit of the book.    I might have one more of this series in the pile, and if so, I'll get around to it eventually, but unless it drastically improves on this one, I may take my leave of this series.

[Eve1972]

I didn't quite enjoy this one as much as I did the other book I read by this author Grave Errors. I felt the mystery in this one took a back seat to all of Lee's running around news reporting, which started to get a little boring after a while. I think the author could have dropped a lot of that and it would have tightened up the story and placed more focus on the murder mystery. There were also quite a few inconsistencies within the story, but hopefully, those will be fixed by the time the book is officially released.





That being said, I still did really enjoy the characters themselves. Lee is a great leading lady. I continued to love Pete and their relationship. I loved Aunt Ibby, and O'Ryan the cat, and the mystery kept me guessing until the end. Throw in a yummy sounding recipe, and it certainly made for an enjoyable (if not perfect) read.