Willow Tate is back in the bosom of her family. Well, at least the bosom of her hometown, Paumanok Harbor. She has agreed to look after her mother's strays while she is away in Florida. As her mother said, a cartoonist can work anywhere, why not where she can do some good?

Willow is a well-known and award-winning writer of graphic novels, but her most troublesome skill is as a Visualizer. She can draw images of those from the realm of Faerie and sometimes they manifest in our world. There was that 10- foot-tall red troll who followed her from her place in Manhattan to Paumanok Harbor, for example. Her home town neighbors' odd reactions revealed a secret at that point, that many of them had 'interesting' talents of their own, from picking lucky numbers to scrying. It was only natural that when glowing white horses bringing horrible dreams and emotions started sweeping through the area the town looked to Willow first as both cause and solution.

Willow herself was caught up in a recurring dream of a trapped foal, which may indicate why the mares were so frantic but she doesn't feel up to handling things on her own. She calls on her fiancé and his Department of Unexplained Events for help. Rather than come himself (he has a Yeti to track down) the Department sends a rather intriguing horse whisperer. With the special talents of the residents of Paumanok Harbor and the sexy horse-whispering cowboy, Willow may be able to handle things after all, but not before mayhem reaches a fever pitch.

NIGHT MARES IN THE HAMPTONS (and its predecessor, Trolls in the Hamptons) are cozy mysteries with a firm basis in paranormal fiction. Willow is an interesting main character, and the quirky and indispensable residents of her home town provide the main interest in the series, for me. The paranormal elements are central to the story but a great deal of my enjoyment came from the matter-of-fact acceptance of magic and psychic powers by the residents of an otherwise typical New England village. The third book in the series, Fire Works in the Hamptons is due out in November 2011.