Retro Reading: The Good, the Bad, and the Witchy by Heather Blake
Murder Wasn't Invited to this Party, but Showed Up Anyway
With the third installment of the Wishcraft Mystery series, author Heather Blake hasn't missed a beat. It has been a great series and looks like it can only get better.
In The Good, the Bad, and the Witchy magical florist Harriett Harkette is celebrating her eightieth birthday by having a party for herself. With the help of Darcy Merriweather and her aunt Ve's personal concierge service, As You Wish Darcy plans an extravagant celebration. However, things change following the murder of Harriette's former delivery boy Michael Healey.
Once Michael's body is discovered, his ghost attaches itself to Darcy. Now she has to figure out who killed him and the connection between his death and the Witching Hour roses.
The eighty year old Harriette is a character unto herself. She's a goth maven with two daughters, a fiance' and can put those half her age to shame. She and her three best friends (known as Wicked Widows) are the rowdiest at the party much to her daughter Lydia's distain.
Harriette's other daughter, Trista, disowned by Harriette when she married Dash Khoury, a botanical genius is a Terracrafter. A Terracrafter is considered "beneath" Floracrafters, which are what the three women are. In keeping with her rebellious side, Trista stayed in town, kept her maiden name and opened an upscale lingerie shop and designed the hot selling bra the AbracadaBra making her a multimillionaire.
The Khoury's son, Fisk, was best friends with Michael and recently the two had gone their separate ways in recent days. She also discovers that Michael was an Illumicrafter who has the ability to provide light.
With the abilities the characters possess it's hard to keep their crafts straight which is also the case for the police chief, Nick Sawyer, who is considered a Halfcrafter since he married into the Craft but does not have any powers. His daughter, Mimi (who's a twelve year old Wishcrafter) is also learning from Darcy.
Since Michael has attached himself to her, Darcy can't get any information from him since he can't talk. The most he can do is illuminate light and they communicate with the standard once for yes, twice for no routine.
Don't let the Crafts scare you away from this series. While there's a lot to try and remember, Blake does a good job with keeping everything simple. If I did get lost with the Crafts and what the characters were capable of doing, everything was cleared up.
Blake's Enchanted Village is a place where you'd like to live if you've always pined away at living in a small town.
