Ill-Fated Fortune

by Jennifer Chow

[annieb123]

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

Ill-Fated Fortune is a charmingly whimsical light paranormal cozy mystery series starter by Jennifer J. Chow. Released 20th Feb 2024 by Macmillan on their Minotaur imprint, it's 320 pages and is available in paperback, mass-market paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.

This is a well written, engaging, series starter by a consistently productive *readable* author. The series features a young Asian American protagonist whose family bakery bakes slightly magical sweets. Felicity falls under suspicion when the police find one of her custom fortunes on the body of a murder victim.

The character driven plot moves along at a good pace, and the mystery is well engineered and appealing. She has a fun relationship with her bestie who runs the neighboring florist shop and is on-board with helping her clear her name. It's nice that the local police detective isn't incompetent or antagonistic, and they semi-bond over the microaggressions and racism-lite that people of color live with every day in the USA. 

Four stars. Eminently readable and pleasant. The language is clean, and there's no on-page graphic violence. The author/publisher have also included some crafty recipes (fortune cookie, floral arranging, and candle/meditations) at the back of the book in classic cozy mystery style.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.