Review--A Magical Match by Juliet Blackwell

 

Witch and vintage store owner Lily Ivory faces her most difficult mystery to date with a case of mistaken identity that hits close to home...

Lily Ivory and her friends are planning a 1950s-themed brunch to benefit the local women's shelter. When a figure from her past shows up unannounced, threatening her unless she returns something that belonged to him, Lily's fiancé, Sailor, steps in to defend her. After the same man is found dead later that day, Sailor is the primary suspect. He swears he's innocent, but multiple witnesses ID him as the perpetrator of the assault. Lily vows to clear his name...only she's not sure where to start with the mounting evidence against him.

When she sees Sailor in the neighborhood despite knowing he's in jail, Lily starts to wonder if there could be a doppelganger in San Francisco. When she's not busy helping customers find matching outfits for the upcoming event, searching for a vintage wedding dress for her own nuptials, and dealing with an ill-timed magical cold, Lily begins to suspect one of her magical foes is targeting her loved ones in an attempt to weaken her.

 

After a DNF read I decided to return to an old favorite that I am once again behind on, and read Juliet Blackwell's Witchcraft Mystery series with A Magical Match! What's great about returning to this series after so long is knowing that all the important details get hashed out again, sure I might forget that Lily once dated a copy (though I can vaguely remember it after I read that part!) but otherwise, everything of note gets mentioned and moving forward with the story and series is a breeze!

Lily and Sailor are planning for their wedding! It's likely to be a two-ceremony deal if things don't fall together in time, which won't be much of an issue. What becomes an issue is when a man from Lily's past comes to her door and demands that she returns a magical item that she has no clue what it is. To make matters worse said man is found dead a day later and Sailor was seen leaving the scene of the crime! Lily knows in her heart that he is innocent and will do everything possible to prove it.

What I love about these cozy paranormal mysteries is how easy they are to read! They're an engaging mystery for sure and there truly is danger around every corner. The suspect list is a mile long. And of course, there's always a bit of magic involved! Though in this series, Lily keeps her magic under control and it's not the kind where she can zap magic from her finger, though that would still be pretty cool!

As Lily is working to prove Sailor's innocence, she finds herself working with Patience, the woman who has been helping Sailor with his own magical training, so to speak. Lily long thought that there was something going on between them, but Sailor has proven his loyalty time and again, though Patience is another thing entirely. Yet these two actually work together to help the man they both care about. There's no fear of a love triangle or lover's quarrel. It seems Patience is resigned to needing to find love elsewhere, but she still cares enough about her friend to do whatever possible to prove his innocence to the police!

I'll admit, the mystery was very intricately woven in this one! I thought I had a good guess on the killer, but not so much on the why of it all. Well, I was pretty far off my marker on this one! Then the reasoning behind the killer's motives did prove to be more detailed as there is the constant larger problem that seems to be happening in the background of this series. Naturally, since it's been awhile since I last picked up a book here, I had trouble remembering all those details and why certain characters were not friends with Lily and such. But these are things that can be overlooked really, since that was more of a "me" problem than anything else.

The book ends with a nice conclusion, the mystery was solved and things are ready to move forward to the next mystery! I still have two books lined up in this series to date. I have yet to discover if the series has wrapped up or not since most sources will only have the series to date listed at this point. I know that the last book took me by surprise since we skipped a year in releasing, but looking back we can likely figure out what was to blame for no new book in 2020, am I right?

While each mystery of this series does well enough on its own. It's still a series you will want to start from the beginning to understand the relationships that have evolved since then! These are what I like to think of as fast reads because the story just flows right off the page! The pacing is ideal for cozy mystery readers as it's a quick one. Along the way there are great relationships that continue to develop and of course, the bigger paranormal story that continues to grow in the background is being brought up more than once to make enough of an impact to get readers' attentions! 

If you're a fan of the paranormal reads and enjoy a light mystery as well, this is one series I highly recommend checking out! It's got the right blend of paranormal and mystery to make for an enticing read!

Overall Rating 5/5 stars