MAGIC AND
MACAROONS is the fifth
Magical Bakery Mystery featuring kitchen witch and
one-third owner of the Honeybee Bakery, Katie Lightfoot. Katie has been in
Savannah, Georgia for a year and a half now, and is still learning
about the Craft from the members of the spellbook club. Mimsey Carmichael
specializes in flower and color magic and dabbles in divination, while Bianca
Devereaux focuses on traditional Wiccan spell work and moon magic. Jaida French
is a tarot expert, and Cookie Rios -- well, she's a generalist since she turned
away from the voodoo she grew up with in Haiti.
But Katie's specialty is hedgewitchery, or green magic, like her aunt Lucy whom
she works with in the bakery. Together, they use their special knowledge of herbs
and spices to gently bewitch the delicious goodies they bake up at the Honeybee
with spells for love, prosperity, health, peace and more. She's also learned that
she's a lightwitch, and while that might account for why she stumbles into so
many murder investigations involving magic, she still doesn't know exactly what
else being a lightwitch entails. Her mentor in that regard, Detective Franklin
Taite, is now dead, and she's waiting for the replacement he promised would show
up in her life.
As
MAGIC AND
MACAROONS begins, it's an unseasonably hot August in Georgia, and Katies is
battling the heat with cool treats for the Honeybee patrons. But then a meeting
of the spellbook club is interrupted by a stranger collapsing on the floor of the
bakery, mumbling something about a missing talisman and voodoo queens. Soon an
impossibly dead body is added to the mix.
Katie is compelled to investigate, and the first thing she does is enlist a
reluctant Cookie Rios' help to find out more about Savannah's infamous voodoo
queens and the possible uses for the missing talisman. She meets several members
of this largely underground community, all quite different, and all possible
suspects at first.
But they aren't the only suspects, and with the help of the members of the
spellbook club, her boyfriend, Declan McCarthy, Declan's improbabl
e
Uncle Connell, and Steve Dawes, Katie tracks the magical killer.
I'm fascinated by the different aspects of magic, and how they relate to
everything from quantum physics to psychic readings. However, friends became a
bit alarmed when I started researching voodoo. It has a reputation for dark
magic, for voodoo dolls and curses. I heard quite a few interesting stories
during the year I conducted research.
However,
there are many, many flavors of voodoo/voudou/vodou/hoodoo. Almost all are based
on West African religions that date back centuries, but many of those have been
added to, subtracted from, or altered by local culture. In the end, my goal was
to address the magical aspects of voodoo with the respect I try to show all
magical or pagan practices in the series. I did a lot of reading (a LOT), and
spoke numerous times with a voodoo queen a friend referred me to
. She was enormously helpful.
One thing I learned from my exploration of voodoo? Well, here's how Cookie Rios
puts it in the book when she's trying to explain the ideas of dark and light
magic to Katie: "[Voodoo] is black. It is white. It is purple and green and red.
You and the others always talk about gray magic, as if the only colors of magic
can be found on some continuum between white and black. But magic is bigger,
wider, deeper than that."
This more expansive vision of magic rings true, however you happen to define it
in your own life. Besides the spell work side of things, there's always a lot of
food in the Magical Bakery Mysteries! For Magic and Macaroons, I include a recipe
for coconut macaroons (what else?).
My (Katie's) version is also a thumbprint cookie. You can fill the center
indentations with any kind of jam, but I also provide recipes for making your own
pineapple jam and pomegranate jelly. The other recipe is for Pao de Quiejo, or
Brazilian cheese bread. I am completely addicted to these cheese puffs made with
tapioca flour, and had to share how super easy they are to make. As an added, if
unintentional, bonus, all these recipes are gluten free.
Next up: Enchanted Garden Mystery #1! This is a new series starting in January of
2016, which I write as Bailey Cattrell. The first one is called
DAISIES FOR
INNOCENCE (the titles reflect the language of flowers) and features perfumer
and gardener (miniature fairy gardens!) named Elliana Allbright. And, of course,
I'm also working on
Magical Bakery Mystery #6,
SPELLS AND SCONES!
Bailey Cates believes magic is all around us if we only look for it. She
studied philosophy, English and history and has held a variety of positions
ranging from driver's license examiner to soap maker. She traveled the world as a
localization program manager for Microsoft, but now sticks close to home where
she writes two mystery series, tends to a dozen garden beds, bakes up a storm and
plays the occasional round of golf.
Having apprenticed with a master herbalist for a year, she's prone to concocting
teas and tinctures for family and friends from the stash of herbs stored in the
corner cabinet in her office. She owns a working spinning wheel and is on a first
name basis with several alpacas and two sheep with questionable dispositions.
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From the New York Times bestselling author of SOME ENCHANTED รCLAIR comes a
tale of delicious desserts and supernatural sleuthingโฆ
For magical baker Katie Lightfoot, the only way to beat the Savannah summer heat
is to whip up some cool treats for the Honeybee Bakeryโs patrons. But when a
meeting of the spellbook club is interrupted by a stranger collapsing on the
floor of her shop, mumbling something about a voodoo talisman, Katie drops
everything to begin investigating.
Her search for answers quickly leads her into a dangerous blend of Savannahโs
infamous voodoo queens, a powerful missing charmโand a deadly witch who seems to
be targeting the cityโs magical community. And with the case getting hotter by
the second, Katie will have to work fast to track down the talisman and the
killer before the timer runs outโฆ
RECIPES INCLUDED
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