Genre:

Darcy Merriweather has just discovered she hails from a long line of Wishcrafters-witches with the power to cast spells by making a wish. She's come to Enchanted Village to learn her trade but finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation...

Review

Darcy Merriweather and her sister Harper are new to the quirky Salem neighborhood known as the Enchanted Village. They’re also new to the art of Wishcraft – a special branch of witchcraft that runs in their family and that gives them the ability to grant people’s wishes. It’s a power that comes in handy in the course of working with their Aunt Ve – another Wishcrafter who owns and operates a personal concierge service called As You Wish – but it also has its drawbacks. You see, if a wish is uttered in the presence of a Wishcrafter, he or she has no choice but to try and grant it. So when Ve’s boyfriend, Sylar, tells Darcy that he wishes Alexandra Shively would go away forever and then the woman is murdered, Darcy can’t help but worry she’s in some way responsible.

She knows that’s unlikely to be the case – there are rules in place with regard whether a wish will actually come true, the first being that a wish can do no harm – but that doesn’t change the fact that Alex is dead. And it also doesn’t change the fact that the police like Sylar for the crime. Darcy’s still not sure what she thinks of Sylar (she just met him, after all, and he WAS found standing over the body), but Ve is convinced of – and determined to prove – his innocence. Can the three Wishcrafters work together to bring Alex’s real killer to justice – whomever that might turn out to be?

It Takes a Witch is the first in author Heather Blake’s new Wishcraft Mystery series. It’s a sweet, quirky little tale about witches and wishes and magic and murder, and it totally knocked my socks off. I’m not often one for whimsy in fiction, but something about this book just clicked with me. When I wasn’t reading it, I wanted to be reading it, and when I was reading it, I didn’t want to stop.

Blake’s prose is chock full of personality and has great flow, her plot is solid and well-developed, and her book has a fantastic sense of atmosphere to it – warm, sunny, enchanted, and inviting. Her descriptions are lush and vivid, helping to bring the fantastical world she’s created to life on the page. And she deftly avoids weighing down her story with info-dumps by revealing the intricacies of the Craft and the Enchanted Village through the eyes of her main character (who’s new to both). The central mystery may be a tad slight for those on a single-minded quest for a page-turning whodunit, but the story as a whole is just so compelling that most readers will be hard-pressed to complain.

Darcy makes for a charming heroine and an engaging narrator. Her chemistry with her supporting cast (particularly love interest Nick, sister Harper, and fellow Crafter Evan) is first-rate. And the fact that there are other kinds of Crafters who populate the Village (Curecrafters, Vaporcrafters, Potioncrafters, Bakecrafters – and the list goes on) is sure to provide Blake with plenty of fodder for books to come.

Reviewed by Kat

READERS COMMENTS