A Witch of A Day and Murder's A Witch

A Witch of a Day: A Beechwood Harbor Magic Mystery Novella 
by Danielle Garrett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Holly is having a witch of a day. Friday the thirteenth should be a day of paranormal delight, but instead, Holly is fighting off the ghosts from her past; the exorcized can't be exorcised. When a strange, hooded figure approaches her with an unthinkable task, Holly is forced to walk the line between light and dark magic, where one wrong step could ruin everything.
***A Witch of a Day is the prequel novella to the Beechwood Harbor Magic Mysteries Series by Danielle Garrett. Meet Holly and uncover the secrets on her road to Beechwood Harbor.

Turns out Holly Boldt was framed by an evil wizard. This stranger forced her to make an illegal magic spell and she got busted for it. That is how and why she ended up in Beechwood Manor halfway house for displaced paranormals.

The evil stranger, on the other hand, attempted to break Holly's ex-boyfriend out of jail by using the magic potion/spell. Well, now she won't have to appear in court in front of her ex-boyfriend anymore, because he is going to rot in jail, but it also means she is banished from her supernatural Haven community.

Murder's a Witch
by Danielle Garrett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Holly Boldt has a secret. Well, technically, she has lots of them. After a scandal uproots her entire life, she is forced to relocate to a halfway house for displaced paranormals. It’s her last shot for a fresh start. But keeping secrets isn’t easy in a town that goes through gossip faster than tissue paper, even for a powerful witch. When a grisly murder rocks the small town of Beechwood Harbor, Holly finds herself unwillingly entangled in the investigation. With everyone watching, Holly must solve the case before she’s forced to abandon her new-found home and live life as a witch on the run. But with a paranormal investigator tailing her every move, a civil war brewing between her vampire and shifter roommates, and her ghostly landlord on the edge of a breakdown, she can barely think in complete sentences. How is she supposed to track down a murderer? Holly has to make it work, or risk losing everything … again. Murder’s a Witch is a cozy witch mystery with a spunky twist. Come see what’s brewing in Beechwood Harbor in this first installment of The Beechwood Harbor Magic Mysteries Series.

Is Murder's a Witch a marketing ploy to get us to read more of her books? It's a genius. My fondness for paranormal fantasy and witches has been rekindled. Holly Boldt is a potion's witch that comes to live in a halfway house for displaced paranormals in Beechwood Harbor. The elusive reason why she ends up living with 4 other paranormals is not explained until we read the prequel novella, Witch of A Day, but we have a vampire, a shapeshifter wolf, a gargoyle and a ghost.
I don't know what it takes to write good characters but Danielle seems to have it in spades.
I loved all the characters in this book!
Even the ones who are bad.

Books From the Backlog

Books from the Backlog is a fun way to feature some of those neglected books sitting on your bookshelf unread. If you would like to join in, please feel free to enter your link @ Carole's Random Life In Books, then spend some time visiting some of the other posts.

This week's neglected book

Come Sunday 

by Isla Morley 

Abbe is a restless young mother living on the outskirts of Honolulu with her husband, Greg, the pastor at a small church. Their lives are suddenly riven by tragedy when their three-year-old daughter, Cleo, is struck and killed by a car. As Greg turns to God and community for comfort, Abbe turns inward and reflects upon her own troubled past. Isla Morley brilliantly weaves the story of Abbe’s grief with a gripping tale of her tempestuous childhood in apartheid South Africa---and how Abbe’s father, a villainous drunk, held her family hostage for decades with his rage until they finally began to plot their escape from him. Come Sunday is a spellbinding drama about a woman breaking free of her grief and of her past, and what it takes to revive hope when all seems lost.

Why did I add Come Sunday to my bookshelf?

It was on sale at the Thrift store and I bought it without reading the synopsis which I often do, just because I had to read 250 books one year, I thought it looked like a great Christian story but Alas, there are more interesting books to read than this one IMO. Tragedy happens to even the good people. No one is exempt from trials and tribulation and it sounds like a woman is grieving over the loss of a child and growing up with an abusive alcoholic parent. Cry me a river. She lived in Africa as a child. So did I. But I have yet to experience Honolulu Hawaii. So there's that.

What are your thoughts? Have you read this book? Would you recommend it to others?

Books From the Backlog

Books from the Backlog is a fun way to feature some of those neglected books sitting on your bookshelf unread. If you would like to join in, please feel free to enter your link @ Carole's Random Life In Books, then spend some time visiting some of the other posts.

This week's neglected book 

An Ice Cold Grave (Harper Connelly #3) by Charlaine Harris 

Mass Market Paperback, 280 pages Published October 1st, 2008 by Berkley Books

The voices of the dead become inescapable clues for lightning-struck sleuth Harper Connelly in this "winning series" (Booklist) of murder--and beyond--from #1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris... Harper Connelly heads to Doraville, North Carolina to find a missing boy--one of several teenage boys who have disappeared over the last five years. And all of them are calling for Harper. She finds them, buried in the frozen ground. All she wants is to get out of town before she's caught in the media storm--until she herself is attacked and becomes part of the investigation. Soon Harper will learn more than she cared to about the dark mysteries and long-hidden secrets of Doraville--knowledge of the dead that makes her next in line to end up in an ice-cold grave...

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Why did I add An Ice Cold Grave to my bookshelf? 

Sometimes I like a good murder mystery thriller like Jo Nesbo, Robert Galbraith and Jeremy Bates, and I had read a few of Charlaine Harris' paranormal fantasy novels but I thought this one might be different but alas! It has been sitting on my shelf waiting for the right time, but now is not yet.

What are your thoughts? Have you read this book? Would you recommend it to others?

Fraterfest Readathon Challenge 2018

This challenge is a book scavenger hunt hosted by Angela @ Angel's Guilty Pleasures for the Fraterfest Readathon and I thought it was pretty straightforward.
Let's see what I will come up with.

1. Find a book with an orange cover.

2. Find a book featuring a feline or felines on the cover.

3. Find a book with the word “witch” in its title.

4. Find a book that features a graveyard or tombstone on its cover.

5. Find a book that features a necromancer on the cover.

6. Find a book with a witches hat on its cover.

7. Find a book with the word “bewitched” in its title.

8. Find a book with the word “spirit” in its title.

9. Find a book with bats on its cover.

10. Find a book with the word “ghost” in its title.

Book Blogger Hop

Book Blogger Hop: Halloween Edition!

The question of the Week

🧛 🦇 🎃 It's getting closer to Halloween. If you HAD to read one of these two genres, which would you prefer -- urban fantasy, or horror, and why? (submitted by Maria @ A Night's Dream of Books) 

 Hands down without a doubt Urban Fantasy. Any sort of fantasy is a favourite genre, and I like reading it the most and not even horror will ever top that. So there. :p "Take that horror, you are evil!" 😁⛄

Books from the Backlog

Books from the Backlog is a fun way to feature some of those neglected books sitting on your bookshelf unread. If you would like to join in, please feel free to enter your link @ Carole's Random Life In Books, then spend some time visiting some of the other posts.

 This week's neglected book 

Undead (Undead #1) by Kirsty McKay

Out of sight, out of their minds: It's a school-trip splatter fest and completely not cool when the other kids in her class go all braindead on new girl Bobby. The day of the ski trip, when the bus comes to a stop at a roadside restaurant, everyone gets off and heads in for lunch. Everyone, that is, except Bobby, the new girl, who stays behind with rebel-without-a-clue Smitty. Then hours pass. Snow piles up. Sun goes down. Bobby and Smitty start to flirt. Start to stress. Till finally they see the other kids stumbling back. But they've changed. And not in a good way. Straight up, they're zombies. So the wheels on the bus better go round and round freakin' fast, because that's the only thing keeping Bobby and Smitty from becoming their classmates' next meal. It's kill or be killed in these hunger games, heads are gonna roll, and homework is most definitely gonna be late. Combining the chill of THE SHINING, the thrill ride of SPEED, the humor of SHAUN OF THE DEAD, and the angst of THE BREAKFAST CLUB, Kirsty McKay's UNDEAD is a bloody mad mash-up, a school-trip splatter-fest, a funny, gory, frighteningly good debut!

Add to Goodreads | Amazon.ca | The Book Depository | Barnes & Noble

Why did I add Undead to my bookshelf?

A long time ago, zombies displeased me. I thought they were stupid and I didn't know what the fascination was all about. Thanks to shows like The Walking Dead, I no longer hate zombies! If anything they make good moving targets lol. punching bags? no? alrighty then. I bought this book because of the cover at a second-hand bookstore, mostly, and because it looked brand new and was cheap so heck yea. I snagged it. I never finished reading it and I so dearly want to but that means I have to read it from the beginning because I almost can't remember what the story was like. Admittedly it was a bit boring so idk.



What are your thoughts? Have you read this book? Would you recommend it to others?

Reading Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper

JLBryanbooks

I'm so excited to read this I don't want to go to bed, but I just need my beauty sleep. It's free on Kindle and I've had it for forever and I'm elated to be able to listen to the audiobook! I wish I could get all the books in the series. It's narrated by Carla Mercer-Meyer because I've been in a slump I don't really feel good about anything lately. I've heard good things about Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper so we shall see. I mean if you are into ghosts then it should be good. I thought it would be a good spooky Halloween read.
I've read, and loved, J.LBryans The Paranormals and Songs of Magic, so I am familiar with the author and I like what I've read so far. Yay!
So far we have the ghost of Mercy Cutledge and they are trying to excise it or get rid of it from a home the Treadwells live at present. It used to be the house of Augustus March. There is history and many people died in that house. The Ghost of Mercy Cutledge isn't leaving though. She used to live in an Asylum when she was alive and the authority regarded her as crazy. Scary detective work investigating the old abandoned mental hospital.
Original post

A Musing Wolfman

The dictionary defines a muse as a person or personified force who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist.

Take a short excerpt from a book that describes something scary or some creature that you remember.

What scary thing or creature lurking in the shadows will you shed light on?

In Magic Bites, Ilona Andrews writes about A Wolfman-

Magic Bites (Kate Daniels #1) by Ilona Andrews Ch. 4 page 93-94

The Wolfman comes tapping at Kates window. . . .

Two amber eyes glared at me, full of longing and hunger. A face that was a meld of wolf and human leaned on the glass. Its misshapen, horrid jaws did not fit together right and long strands of drool hung from its crooked yellowed teeth. The skin around the lupine nose wrinkled. The nightmarish thing sniffed the glass, blowing air through its black nostrils and making a small opaque circle of condensation. It raised one deformed hand and tapped the glass with an inch-long claw. Tap, Tap, Tap. The nightmare opened his mouth and produced a low guttural growl, the frustrated snarl of a mind gifted with the power of speech but locked in a body unable to produce the words. Only the most adept of the shapechangers could speak in a midform.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

I am a participant in The Countdown to Halloween!

  I bought this classic horror to read for Fraterfest Halloween Readathon and was content to do so until Penguin Random House recently offered a FREE audio download of Frankenstein in connection with Kiersten Whites new release of The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein. So ya. I could not wait another minute. Now I have the pleasure of owning both formats and I am loving Jim Weiss narration. His voice booms in crescendos and is soft in decrescendos. I'm on page 139. The written text reads like a beautiful song with descriptive lyrics. I don't know where Mary Shelley got her inspiration from but I saw a similarity from the Bible story, Sodom and Gomorrha. When God speaks to Abraham about sparing the city if he found as few as one righteous person? Same with Frankenstein. When the monster pleads with Victor to make him a companion. If for the sake of one person who shows compassion towards him he would save humanity. Or something like that.

"If any being felt emotions of benevolence towards me, I should return them an hundred and an hundredfold; for that one creature's sake I would make peace with the whole kind!"

How the creature was terribly misunderstood when he tries to help a small child all because he was hideous looking!

"This was then the reward of my benevolence! I had saved a human being from destruction, and as a recompense, I now writhed under the miserable pain of a wound which shattered the flesh and bone."

Poor creature. How sad and lonely and wretched he was! I love Clerval and Justine Moritz and the snow-clad mountains in Geneva. I love the cottagers. Everything about the story is well written and descriptive. It's not hard to picture. I adored the movie, Young Frankenstein. It's amazing how much of the real story is portrayed! so I was sort of familiar with the main ideas but I think it's cool to be able to actually read the book. I don't find it scary at all.

Original post: Jackie's Booklikes
Check out Frankensteinia Countdown to Halloween participant 

The Countdown Commences

Booktober, Blogoween, Inktober, Drawlloween and all the others in between has begun. October has commenced which means I will be posting something to do with books and Halloween at least for 13 days out of 31. Fingers crossed, and if my @#!'ing computer will cooperate. I am doing Blogoween on my other blog if I'm not here I am there: @ Jackie's Forget Me Nots