If you haven't read Juliet Blackwell's Witchcraft
mystery
series, do yourself a favor and start from the beginning.
If you like cozies by Shirley Damsgaard, Yasmine
Galenorn,
Heather Blake and/or Bailey Cates, I can promise you'll
eagerly devour this series. For those of you who have
already experienced this witchy cozy goodness, A TOXIC
TROUSSEAU, the seventh installment, won't disappoint.
A girl breezes into Aunt Cora's and serves Lily with a
personal injury lawsuit from Autumn Jennings. Jennings, a
sort-of competitor, visited the store, but Oscar, the
potbellied pig didn't like how she treated the clothing
or
the people and head butted her. She fell but seemed all
right when she left. Lily would rather handle this
situation peacefully if she can, especially after Aiden
Rhodes has left her in charge of the city's witches while
he's out of town, but all is not well at Autumn's store
when Lily and Maya arrive. In fact, Autumn seems very ill
and ends up dying after she's taken to the hospital.
Lily, of course, is the police's prime suspect, so she
sets
out to find out whodunit. Blackwell introduces some
interesting characters from the dog walker/process server,
who runs away when she sees Lily on the street; Renee, the
cupcake baker; an old woman named Mrs. Morgan who has a
poodle; Jamie, the curse banisher; and Cody who works at
the Winchester haunted house and, along with his wife,
Eleanor, owns a dog named Mr. Bojangles. It all ties
together so nicely when Bronwyn opts to have her birthday
party, a slumber party no less, at the haunted house with
Sailor and Lily as bodyguards.
No Lily Ivory mystery is complete without haunted clothing
though. In this case, it's a cursed trousseau; the legend
tells of a shoeshine boy, a rich guy and a fiancée, and
many believe the trousseau still holds the curse. There's
a
lot going on in this story. Some threads have deal solely
with this particular story while others give additional
background on characters and move the series itself a head
with details about a coming magical event.
It's a shame these stories only come out once a year as
they don't last nearly long enough. Blackwell takes a
year
to complete one and get it out to her readers, and I spend
a day reading it and then have to patiently wait another
year. Ah well, I begin my next year of waiting, and I'm
sure I'll be delighted when I finally get to experience
another adventure with Lily and her crew.
Even the most skilled sorceress can’t ward off a lawsuit,
and Lily is not at her enchanting best with her hands
full as the temporary leader of San Francisco's magical
community. So after her potbellied pig Oscar head-butts
rival clothier Autumn Jennings, Lily tries to make peace
without a costly personal injury case.
But any hope of a quiet resolution is shattered when
Autumn turns up dead. As one of the prime suspects, Lily
searches for a way to clear her name and discovers a
cursed trousseau among Autumn’s recently acquired
inventory. Lily must deal with a mysterious dogwalker and
spend the night in a haunted house as she delves into the
trunk’s treacherous past. She’s got to figure out who
wanted to harm Autumn fast, before the curse claims
another victim…
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