Friday, January 6, 2023

Review: Sweet Tea Witch Mysteries by Amy Boyles

 


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