What's A Witch To Do?

2012 has been a busy year in reading for me.  Even though I didn't come close to my 2010 reading goal of 101 books or meet my 2012 goal of 70 books, reading 53 books in one year is no mean feat for a busy mother of three.

Bookworm Admission: Over the past few months, my reading and my book reviewing weren't quite keeping up with each other.  In order to play catch up a bit I've written three reviews (only 1 more pending) which I will now post as a lovely fairwell to 2012.

Wishing you and yours a very happy, healthy and safe 2013.  May your days be filled with food, amazing reads and a whole lotta happy.

So, without further ado, here is my review for the first book in a new supernatural mystery series, "What's A Witch To Do?" by Jennifer Harlow.

Author: Jennifer Harlow
Type: Kindle ebook (Advanced Reading Copy)
Genre: Supernatural, mystery
Series: Midnight Magic Mystery series #1
Publication Date: March 8, 2013
Publisher: Midnight Ink Books
First Line: "My heart skips a beat."

Synopsis:  Thirty-five year old Mona McGregor leads a busy life.  She runs the Midnight Magic Shop in her small hometown of Goodnight, Virginia, she's raising her two young nieces on her own and she's the High Priestess of a large coven.  Unfortunately Mona's love life isn't one of the things keeping Mona busy.  For the past 15 years she's been on a romantic lull but when a new young doctor begins paying attention to her Mona hopes that her luck is changing.  

One night, Adam Blue, the Beta werewolf of his pack, arrives on her doorstep injured and near death.  He has shown up out of the blue to warn Mona that someone wants Mona dead.  Against her initial feelings and with little other options available, Mona agrees to allow Adam to stay and protect her and the girls.  When Mona learns that an evil demon is stalking her, she teams up with Adam to find out who among her family, friends and the locals would want her dead.

My Thoughts:  This book has a lot going for it and while I can't say that I loved it, it did have enough going for it that I enjoyed the overall experience.  We're given a complicated main character (more to come on dear Mona), a brawny and tough leading man, a good mystery and interesting secondary characters and nice dose of supernatural.

The main character, Mona, is a complicated gal.  On the one hand she's a strong woman who has kept her family, business and coven together all on her own.  Even when Adam comes into her life she still prefers to do things on her own and even tells him that she doesn't need him to save her.  Score one for girl power!  On the other hand, her fairly consistent bouts of self loathing take away from her strength and even her general likeability.  At times these bouts seemed to take too much centre stage for my liking.

Adam, the werewolf, plays the part of the young, sexy, muscle-bound hunk with a big heart.   His character was believably written in that I could see him aggressively protecting Mona and in the next scene see him interact with the two young nieces made my heart melt. 

While the pace of the book was decent I did find that it lagged in the middle.  And while I did like the build up to the ending I found the demon slaying to be over too quickly and resolved much too easily for my liking. 

Overall, as a first book in (I assume) a new paranormal mystery series it's a good start.  Ms Harlow has set up future storylines well so that I'm quite intrigued to find out why Mona's younger sister (the mother of Mona's nieces) left so many years ago and disappeared from her family's lives.  I'd also love to see Adam's Pack be involved more in future storylines to cause a little friction. 

This is a well written light mystery with a healthy dose of supernatural.

My Rating: 3/5 stars

Note: My sincere thanks to Midnight Ink Publishing, Jennifer Harlow and NetGalley for providing me with this complimentary ebook copy in exchange for my honest review.