This feature is for short reviews, reviews of books in a series where it might feel repetitive, or (as Michelle suggested) books I was too lazy to write a “real” review for. Today’s books are all from the Witches of Hollow Cover series.
I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Shadow Witch by Kim Richardson Narrator: Devon Sorvari
Series: Witches of Hollow Cove #1
Published by Tantor Audio on February 2, 2021
Genres: Cozy Mystery, Paranormal, Romance
Length: 7 hours 46 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Publisher
Goodreads
Are you ready for your next magical adventure?
Okay, so I’m in trouble. Big trouble. I’m broke. Worse, my boyfriend of five years just dumped me.
What do I do? I move in with my three eccentric aunts in their family home, Davenport House. Sounds exciting, only this massive farmhouse likes to eat men.
If I were a regular human, I would have run out screaming like a banshee. As a witch—I do absolutely nothing. Hey, maybe they deserved it?
I’m back in Hollow Cove, the flamboyant paranormal community, where nymphs, werewolves, trolls, shifters, witches, and other paranormals live comfortable lives away from prying human eyes. As I settle into my new life, I decide to accept my aunts’ proposal and join the family business—the business of protecting our town and killing anything that would want to harm it.
But I’ve been away from the paranormal world for quite some time, and my magical abilities are a little bit rusty. Heck, they’re practically invisible.
Things soon spiral down the crapper when people in our community start dropping like flies. And when demons start showing up in Hollow Cove, it’s up to me to take care of them. Permanently.
This is going to be awesome. I just know it.
Get ready for this heart-pounding and laugh-out-loud magical adventure!
If you like fast-paced urban fantasy with a mix of witch cozy mystery, then you’ll love Shadow Witch.
Don’t miss out on this fun witchy series. If you enjoy witch books with humor and kick-butt heroines, you won’t want to miss The Witches of Hollow Cove series.
This was okay, but not great. I think there’s a decent amount of potential in the magical world, but there are inconsistencies, the characters are a little caricature-like, and I don’t love the main character. On the flip side, I’m interested and since I have the next couple books for audio review, I’m going to keep reading and see if some of those elements don’t work themselves out.
The biggest problem is that I don’t love the main character, Tessa. I like her okay and she says things sometimes that really make me laugh. But she also is super quick to anger and a bit over the top in her demonstrations of said anger. I think the dialogue is where things grate on me a little… maybe? And the fact that she’s just come back home with supposedly very little magical training and is being thrust – successfully – into all these intense scenarios. It’s a little over-the-top. Which is a good way to describe all the characters. They are all very extreme with like 1 trait that defines them.
As for the magical world – it’s neat. There’s this community hidden from human view full of cast-offs from the magical community. And Tessa’s family belongs to a magical agency – The MERLIN Group – that protects the community. Only the community is under attack and her aunts are losing. So in comes Tessa, reeling from a bad breakup and not having been part of the community for over 5 years, untrained and… she’s the leader? She’s reading spell books on the fly and succeeding? And there’s this giant problem with how power words are described. Tessa talks about how their super dangerous to use because there’s no room for mistakes. You either use the words right and have this big sap on your power or use the words wrong and die. Within a couple chapters of her learning power words she tries to use them and says the wrong word, oh 4 or 5 times, and nothing happens. Um, that’s not what you described.
Anyway, I am going to continue and see if some of that doesn’t soften. I am listening and I have to say the narration is also just okay. I don’t know if it’s a case of not great dialogue so your voices aren’t great or the voices exacerbate the dialogue problem? The male voices are a little rough sounding. Not enough to make me stop and just read, but not making this narrator a favorite for me at this point.
I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Midnight Spells by Kim Richardson Narrator: Devon Sorvari
Series: Witches of Hollow Cove #2
Published by Tantor Audio on March 16, 2021
Genres: Cozy Mystery, Paranormal, Romance
Length: 7 hours 36 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Publisher
Goodreads
Get ready for this heart-pounding and laugh out loud magical adventure!
Just when I thought I’d finally gotten my life back on track, the unexpected happens.
It’s the annual Night Festival in Hollow Cove, a paranormal festival extravaganza that lasts for five nights and features a multitude of powerful faces in our paranormal circles.
There’s only one little problem. Someone ends up dead. And I’m the one accused of murder.
As my life spirals down the crapper once again, things between me and Marcus are even more confusing than ever before—hot—but ridiculously confusing. And to add to my wondrous good fortune—something or someone is trying to kill me.
So, what is a witch do to? Find the culprit and clear my name, that’s what.
This book was a bit better than the first. The characters feel a little more complete, but I did still find the mystery very obvious.
One notable change, Tessa bothered me a little less. I mean, she still has a ridiculous temper and likes to fly off the handle. But I guess it’s like with a friend, you learn to accept less likable traits in favor of positives – in Tessa’s case, I do like her loyalty to her family and friends.
As with the first book, I did have the whodunnit figured out from pretty much the moment the crime happened. Along the way, we meet a new character – Iris – that I liked a lot and learned a bit more about Tessa’s Aunts, making them a bit more 3 Dimensional.
The narration also seemed better, which makes me think it was (as I wondered) less about the narrator and more about the content in the first book. No one’s voice really bothered me this time.
I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Charmed Nights by Kim Richardson Narrator: Devon Sorvari
Series: The Witches of Hollow Cove Book #3
Published by Tantor Audio on May 25, 2021
Genres: Cozy Mystery, Paranormal, Romance
Length: 7 hours 45 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Publisher
Goodreads
They took my Merlin license away.
To get it back, I must complete the witch trials. Okay, so I have to pass a few magical trials. No big deal. Right? Wrong.
The trials are treacherous, ominous, and deadly. I’m not prepared for such brutal, magical tests, but I can’t stop. Stopping means failure, and too many people are counting on me.
But then the worst happens. While I’m trying to focus on the trials, the local baker in Hollow Cove is poisoned and killed. And someone I care about is blamed.
As the clues start to fit together, I realize I have to wade through a pack of lies to find the truth—and to find the real killer.
But first, I’ll need to survive the witch trials.
Charmed Nights is the third book in The Witches of Hollow Cove series. If you like fast-paced urban fantasy adventure with a kick-butt heroine and plenty of action, suspense, and humor, you’ll love Charmed Nights.
This series absolutely improves with each book. I enjoyed the characters much more in this book, the mystery was both more compelling and less obvious (I didn’t solve it ahead of time) and the MERLIN trials really propelled the story along.
Tessa has grown on me and her loyalty to friends and family has helped me to overlook my annoyance with her temper. It’s how she deals, where some people would get sad she gets mad. Okay, I can understand that. In this book she talks about having grown “great big lady balls” about a million times though and I found that really annoying. There are other, less annoying ways, of expressing you have internal strength, grit, etc. I hope it’s a 1 book phenomenon.
Her aunts have also become less flat – they still have their defining traits that are a bit caricature-like – but I also got to see them more as people, which was nice. And her love-hate relationship with Marcus progressed and improved in this book.
I don’t love special snow-flake story lines and something of that is starting to emerge here. I guess I should have seen it coming because of how quickly she takes on abilities in each book. A little stronger hint of that is presented here, in the way she uses some skills for the MERLIN trials. Despite that, I did enjoy the MERLIN trials and they, combined with Ruth getting charged with a murder, made this book better than the other two for me.
The narration continues to be better than the first book, reaffirming my feeling that what bothered me in the first book wasn’t actually the fault of narration but character development. I’m glad I didn’t give up on listening to the series.
I’m glad it continued to improve for you. The first book in any series can be a bit tougher as you learn the world and characters.
Sometimes series start out as just okay and then get better along the way. I’ve had this with a few series myself.