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Wednesday, July 27, 2022

From the B Shelf...

 Author: Juliet Blackwell
Title:  Hexes and Hemlines



First lines:  "It didn't take a witch to figure out something was very, very wrong on the thirteenth floor of the Doppler Building. ... I took a deep breath and concentrated on not losing my lunch. Most days I deal in vintage clothing, not corpses. I may be a natural-born witch, but I'm no more comfortable around violent death than any other mortal merchant on Haight Street."

Hexes and Hemlines is a fun mix of witchcraft and murder mystery. Lily Ivory, who owns a vintage clothing shop called Aunt Cora's Closet, gets called in to consult on the murder of a man named Malachi Zazi, mostly because he's found surrounded by several symbols of bad luck. The detective on the case knows she's a witch and hopes she can explain what all those symbols might mean. But the more questions Lily asks, the more people keep telling her to back off--from Aiden, the powerful witch who's been training her, to Bronwyn, her close work friend, as well as another witch named Doura who threatens Lily if she doesn't leave well enough alone.

Lily leads a complicated life, and as I read this mystery I found myself wishing several times that I'd read the previous two books in this series first. It would have helped me sort out her various acquaintances and tangled relationships. But my library didn't have any copies of those books sitting on the B shelf. Only this one. And Blackwell did a pretty good job of catching me up on Lily's life. 

I thought the magic and witchcraft in this book was a lot of fun. And Lily's familiar, Oscar, made me smile. He's a goblin who pretends to be a pot-bellied pig when regular humans are around. But I felt the mystery itself got a little lost in the confusion of all the different characters. Still, I liked it. And I wouldn't mind trying another book in this paranormal mystery series at some point. 

Happy Reading!

32 comments:

  1. This series sounds like a heap of fun!

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    1. I liked all the magic in it; the mystery got a bit lost though. It was still a fun summer read. :)

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  2. Witchcraft and murder mystery? Sounds like a fun read! :)

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    1. I liked it, but I wish I'd read the first book before reading this one. :)

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  3. This one doesn't really sound like my cup of tea but I can see that others might find it quite enjoyable for a summer read.

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    1. It's a fun read if you like your mysteries with a bit of paranormal/supernatural magic in them. If you don't? It's not the book for you. :)

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  4. Her familiar is a goblin who pretends to be a pot-bellied pig? That sounds so fun! :D

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  5. This sounds fun. And we don't see goblins very much... :)

    This is Greg by the way. I'm using a different browser because Chrome and/ or Captcha are messing w/ me today... :)

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    1. I wish they would fix the comment issues! I keep trying different things, too, and sometimes they work for a day or two, and then suddenly they don't. It's so stupid! Thanks for commenting anyway. :)

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  6. A goblin who pretends to be a pot bellied pig. That's too funny.

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  7. My library sometimes only has parts of a series and it never makes any sense to me. This one sounds like it would be worth a read.

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    1. It's very frustrating when the library only has a few books in a series, especially when they don't have the first one!

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  8. This does sound like fun, but I will try to hunt up the first one in series first!

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    1. I would. I think it'd make following the different relationships later on much easier!

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  9. I wonder why they didn't have the previous books. Glad to hear you enjoyed it even so. Enough to read more from the series. :)

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    1. Oh, who knows! Books get lost and replacements never seem to get bought. Or it could have been checked out. It's rare these days for my library to have all the books in all the series. :)

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  10. Love it. Regine
    www.rsrue.blogspot.com

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  11. I am not so sure about the supernatural elements in this but it does sound like a lot of fun.

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    1. It's the supernatural aspects that I liked the best because the mystery wasn't tightly plotted, but if supernatural isn't your thing then you might not want to read this one. :)

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  12. This sounds delightful with a nice mix of mystery and supernatural elements. Great review Lark.

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    1. I like the combination of supernatural and mystery in books. :D Thanks for commenting.

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  13. I've read a couple of books in this series and really enjoyed another series by this author about a woman who renovates haunted houses. This sounds delightful and I need to focus on this series!

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    1. Ooh...renovating haunted houses! I like the sound of that. :)

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  14. Funny first lines! I hope you enjoy it!

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  15. Kind of a bummer about the mystery but it still sounds like a fun read overall.

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  16. This sounds like fun! I'll have to see if I can track down the first book in the series.

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    1. Definitely start with that one. I wish I had. :)

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