Sweet Tea
Witch Mysteries
by Amy Boyles
Well, shrimp and grits! This is a total fluff but
it was just the right kind of fluff I needed to relax while driving during the
holiday season. I didn’t have to focus too hard on it, just let the words wash
over me.
Apparently there are 26 books in this series but
Hoopla only has the first 5 on audio. Those 5 are pretty fun and a good enough
series run for me. There isn’t enough depth to warrant reading more than that
for me, at least not right now. I do wonder how the series has developed
though, and might pick up some further along in the series at some point. I
figure no writer is static in their skills and if this was good enough to enjoy
now, it could get a lot better later on.
Sweet Tea Witch Mysteries are everything you
expect in a paranormal cozy mystery. There’s witches and wizards, and as the
series progresses there are werewolves, dragons, vampires, etc. Characters are
larger than life, laugh out loud funny, and the reading gives them the perfect
spin.
Pepper Dun doesn’t even know she’s a witch when
the series starts but the author keeps you reading and laughing as the worst
day of Pepper’s life unfolds. She loses her job, her apartment, and her
boyfriend. (Sounds like a country song but it seems to me she isn’t losing much
in any of those situations.) Strangely enough, she doesn’t seem too happy to
find out that she’s a witch. I would be!
Then, after a wizard threatens her and a talking cat
helps her escape, she sets out on the road to Magnolia Cove, Alabama. In
Magnolia Cove she finds her long lost granny and a ready-made family of cousins,
plus she finds out she has inherited a pet store.
One thing that confused me was how she was
allergic to animals, and particularly cats, with all the big symptoms, trouble
breathing, and itching, etc., but she just kind of gets over it. The writer
could have at least had her grandmother create Pepper some kind of magical
antihistamine. If she did, I missed it.
In book 1, she is accused of murdering the man who
wanted to buy her pet store, which is pretty strange seeing as she wanted to sell it to him. She meets a
handsome man named Axle and they have an instant attraction, standard stuff.
The series is a bit repetitive. There isn’t a lot
of depth here, but it’s silly and fun. In book 2, her grandmother is accused of
murder and in book 3 she receives a baby dragon but a magician tries to buy him
and she ends up under scrutiny, again, for murder.
There are things that are trite and absolutely
overdone in the type of book. It’s almost a reverse Scooby Doo where the main
character IS supernatural.
However, I the southern setting and the idea of the
witch owning a pet store for familiars. Her ability to read the limited thoughts
of animals was a nice touch and useful in the stories.
The author did pick some unusual phrases to repeat
for certain characters, like Pepper sort of sliding a shoulder down the wall in
book 5. It gave me pause every time she said it. I think the author was trying
to give her a character tag to repeat every time she was in a scene, but that
one, along with some others at different times over the five books I read, just
didn’t quite work.
Some people suggested that she must not be
southern but I wouldn’t know it. She clearly loves all things southern as all
her books are set there.
It’s a fun series and I’d give what I’ve read a
solid 3 stars, maybe 3.5.
Some other cozy mysteries I’ve enjoyed and reviewed -
Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala https://storymusing.blogspot.com/2022/11/storymusing-chillers-and-thrillers.html
The
Vanishing Type
by Ellery Adams https://storymusing.blogspot.com/2022/05/a-merry-month-of-may-multitude-of-book.html
Little
Bookshop of Murder
by Maggie Blackburn https://storymusing.blogspot.com/2021/07/book-review-little-bookshop-of-murder.html
Swamp Spook:
A Miss Fortune Mystery by Jana DeLeon https://storymusing.blogspot.com/2021/07/book-review-swamp-spook-miss-fortune.html
The Nina
Quinn Mysteries
by Heather Webber https://storymusing.blogspot.com/2021/04/book-review-nine-quinn-mysteries-by.html
Death in
Avignon by
Serena Kent https://storymusing.blogspot.com/2021/07/book-review-death-in-avignon-by-serena.html
The
Witchcraft Mysteries
by Juliet Blackwell https://storymusing.blogspot.com/2021/05/book-review-witchcraft-mysteries-by.html
Death By Dumpling: A Noodle Shop Mystery by Vivien Chien https://storymusing.blogspot.com/2021/03/book-review-death-by-dumpling-noodle.html
Say Cheese and Murder: A Lemington Cheese Company Mystery by Michelle Pointis Burns https://storymusing.blogspot.com/2020/12/book-review-say-cheese-and-murder.html
Disappearing Nightly: An Esther Diamond Novel by Laura Resnick https://storymusing.blogspot.com/2020/08/book-review-disappearing-nightly-esther.html
Motherducking Magic by Michelle Fox https://storymusing.blogspot.com/2020/08/book-review-motherducking-magic-by.html
