DEAD BOLT: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery - Juliet Blackwell

From the back of the book: There's no room at the inn when it's full of ghosts...

General contractor Melanie Turner's latest restoration is a historic Queen Anne Victorian in San Francisco's Cow Hollow neighborhood. Trouble is, she'll have to work around the owners, the Daley family, who refuse to leave during the construction. But when eerie things start happening around the site, the Daleys threaten to call off the renovation for fear that the work is disrupting ghosts who live on the property.

But the ghosts aren't the only ones getting in the way of the renovation. The Daleys' neighbors aren't thrilled by the muss and fuss of the construction project. When Mel's father finds a dead body near the job site, Mel must add one more task to her growing to-do list. She has to finish the job, bring the house back from the brink, and complete her greatest renovation project yet: restoring her reputation....

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Such a fun series with great characters and super ghostly goin's on. These are scary spectres roaming in the Victorian Mel is renovating. I like how atmospheric the ghost scenes read. I find myself wrinkling my nose at the 'smells' or the cringing at the sounds as I read a passage.

There's more than just ghosts, too. I like a book with more than one mystery to solve and this has a couple or more. A murder and missing people, so Mel has her hands full. All that and she has her company to run and her people to keep renovating. And the ghosts to move along.....

Five moving ghosts beans.....

HEXES AND HEMLINES: A Witchcraft Mystery - Juliet Blackwell

From the back of the book: With her vintage clothing store taking off, Lily Ivory is finding that life in San Francisco suits her just fine. But her ability to sense vibrations from the past, so useful in locating secondhand gems, has landed her in themiddle of a new mystery....

Lily gets called away from Aunt Cora's Closet when the police need a witch's take on a strange case. Malachi Zazi was stabbed to death in his apartment, under a ladder, surrounded by the number thirteen, a broken mirror, and a black cat----superstitions that the victim, as head of a rationalist society, was devoted to discrediting.

When the police identify a suspect from the Serpentarian Society, Lily is shocked to learn it's someone she knows. But with bad luck plaguing all the members, she begins to wonder if there's more at work than mere coincidence. And while there aren't many clues from the crime scene, Lily finds evidence of dark witchcraft and a hex on her friend's doorstep. With her friend's safety at stake, Lily is determined to use magic to find the murderer before everyone's luck runs out.....

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This is such an excellent paranormal cozy series. I love Lily and would love to be friends with her, Bronwyn, would love to at least look at Aidan Rhodes, and definitely hang with Oscar, who is Lily's familiar. And to shop in Aunt Cora's Closet would be suh-weeeet!

The mixture of light-hearted and grim has the right touch for a reader to stay up late and keep turning those pages into the night to see what's going to happen next.

Lily is learning to love having friends, something she didn't have much of growing up in her suspicious Texas town. When her friend Bronwyn starts acting completely opposite her sunny warm welcoming self, Lily wants to help. I like that Juliet Blackwell has Lily learning how to be a friend and we get to see it.

Lily is also learning more about her abilities and she knows she has more to experience. Much as she isn't happy about it, she knows that Aidan Rhodes is going to be instrumental in her growth. That is a heckuva cool cliffhanger to make this reader want the next book ASAP. Okay, Juliet, please write faster!

Five please write faster beans.....

IF WALLS COULD TALK: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery - Juliet Blackwell

From the back of the book: She puts up walls, he walks through them.

Since she took over her father's construction business, Melanie Turner has made quite a name for herself remodeling historic houses in San Francisco Bay area. But now her reputation may be on the line.

At her newest renovation project, a run-down Pacific Heights mansion, Mel is visited by the ghost of a colleague who recently met a bad end with power tools. Mel hopes that by tracking down the killer, she can rid herself of the ghostly presence of the murdered man.

Mel's only clue is an odd box she discovers inside a wall at the job site. If she can make sense of its mysterious contents, she might be able to nail a killer----before she becomes the next construction casualty.....

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I really like Juliet Blackwell's other series, about Lily Ivory the witch from Texas who lives in San Francisco and has a vintage clothing shop. I loved that one from the get-go.

It's going to take the next book to get me to really like Mel Turner and this series. There are some loose ends that I don't remember being tied together at the end or anywhere near the end.

That said, I am looking forward to the next one, due in December 2011. I love the premise of Mel being a strong woman character who owns her own construction company and can see ghosts. I think there is a lot of room for discovery of information of Mel and her cast of characters. I read the sneak peek at the end of IF WALLS COULD TALK and the second one looks super.

Five giving it a ghostly shot beans......

A CAST-OFF COVEN: A Witchcraft Mystery #2 - Juliet Blackwell

From the back of the book: Lily Ivory is not your average witch. She runs a vintage clothing store called Aunt Cora's Closet, and with her magical ability to sense vibrations of the past from clothing and jewelry. Lily has made the shop a big hit---and her mystery-solving skills are also in high demand.

Students are spooked at the San Francisco School of Fine Arts, and Lily is called in to search for possible paranormal activity. In exchange for her help, she's been promised a trunkful of Victorian-era clothes recently discovered in a school storage closet.

But Lily finds something else: the body of a wealthy patron of the school. In between running the tore and seeing her new boyfriend, Max--a "myth buster" who is uncomfortable with her witchcraft--she uses her sleuthing skills to try to solve the murder. Soon Lily senses something from the school's vintage clothes, but it's not the smell of mothballs---it's the unmistakable aura of evil intent.

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I do enjoy this series. It's a great mixture of mystery and paranormal with a nice dollop of humor and neat characters.

Lily is learning what it's like to have friends. She's never had them before since she was a cast out in her hometown in Texas. Since moving to San Francisco, she has friends, a lovely shop that is highl popular and a neat familiar, Oscar the shape-shifting critter.

The evil that Lily finds in the closet at the School of Fine Arts is a mystery, but she knows she must get to the bottom of it and can with the help of the coven and her really mysterious friend and possible mentor, Aiden Rhodes.

Lily is also trying to figure out how to have a relationship with her myth-busting possible boyfriend, Max. She is a powerful witch and Max doesn't believe in magic or anything mystic. Will the relationship work out?

Five mystical magical beans.....

Books in the House - Monday 9 Aug 2010

It's been a bit since I've had the time or the books in the house to post much..so now it's all in one fell book swoop
From the very sweet Jeanne Stein, the latest magnet to my collection with the cover of the next Anna Strong, CHOSEN...out 31 Aug!!

Thanks to a contest on Paranormality blog, I won the above very cool packet from author Carrie Eicher

I also received:

From Mary Ann:

RED DELICIOUS DEATH - Sheila Connelly, MPB, cozy

From Cassie:

PRETTY POISON - Joyce and Jim Lavene, cozy

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEED: Haunted Guesthouse Mystery #1 - E J Copperman, cozy

Schwag from Chloe Neill (have a book on the way, too, I think)

I've been Twice Bitten bracelet

Cadogan House coaster

Chicagoland vampires pen (love pens!)

some very cool bookmarks

My order from High Crimes:

HUNTED BY THE OTHERS - Jess Haines, MPB, UF

AVENGING ANGELS - Mary Stanton, MPB, paranormal mystery

A CAST-OFF COVEN - Juliet Blackwell, MPB, paranormal mystery

A TIMELY VISION - Joyce and Jim Levine, cozy paranormal, MPB

SECONDHAND SPIRITS: A Witchcraft Mystery - Juliet Blackwell

From the back of the book: Lily Ivory is not your average witch. Her spell-casting powers tend to draw mischievous spirits while keeping normal humans at a distance. But now her vintage store could give her a chance to make friends in San Francisco.

Lily hopes for a normal life when she opens Aunt Cora's Closet. With her magical knack for vintage fashion---she can sense vibrations of the past from clothing and jewelry--her store becomes a big hit.

But when a client is murdered and children start disappearing from the Bay Area, Lily may be the only one who can unravel the crime. She tries to keep her identity a secret while investigating, but it's not easy--especially under the spells of sexy "myth buster" Max Carmichael and powerful witch Aidan Rhodes. Will Lily's witchy ways be forced out of the closet?
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Lily is a natural witch and was ridden out on a rail of her home in Texas. She wanders the world and finally settles in San Francisco, opening her vintage shop, Aunt Cora's Closet.
I liked how the mystery found her, it didn't feel forced. Lily honestly felt compelled to find out who the killer was and who was taking the children. Yes, magic was involved and she used hers to help.
I enjoyed watching Lily find out the nature of friendship and how good it felt. She'd never fit in before, so this was new territory for her. I liked how naturally she used her magic abilities to find vintage clothing and find the right fit for her customers.
My favorite secondary character had to be Oscar, shape-shifting sort of goblin, Lily's familiar. He is so nifty!
I hope the readers get to meet Lily's grandmother, Graciela, somehow. There's some past info that meanders through the story about Lily's family that was intriguing.
This was darker than I expected it to be, so it's not a 'cozy' in that sense. It's a paranormal amateur sleuth, if a label is required.
I really liked this book and so very glad it's the beginning of a series. Juliet Blackwell is a pseudonym for Hailey Lind who wrote the Annie Kincaid, reformed art forger cozy series that I loved and miss. Yippee that the fourth in that series, ARSENIC AND OLD PAINT, will be out this year in September per the two blog sites.

Five magical sparkly diamonds.....