Home for a Spell

November 8, 2010
Maggie O'Neill, "empath, intuitive, and sometimes witchy nice girl," is oh-so-slowly recovering from a broken ankle in Alt's sprightly seventh paranormal cozy set in Stony Mill, Ind. (after 2010's A Witch in Time). Though Maggie loves her temporary digs with Marcus Quinn, her doting wizard boyfriend, she doesn't want him to delay his back-to-college plans to care for her. Maggie finds a great deal on a place at New Heritage, a local apartment complex, but before she can sign the lease, she and Marcus discover its manager, Rob Locke, floating in the complex's pool, dead from blunt force trauma. Maggie's ex-boyfriend, policeman Tom Fielding, isn't thrilled that Maggie is once again connected to a murder case. As Rob's involvement in some unsavory doings at New Heritage becomes clearer, Alt's light brew of mystery and romance turns deliciously chilling.

December 1, 2010

Maggie O'Neill's search for a new apartment in Stony Mill, Ind., leads her to yet another murder.

The broken ankle Maggie acquired in her last murder investigation (A Witch in Time, 2010) has forced her to move in with her boyfriend Marcus Quinn. Feeling that she's keeping Marcus from returning to college, she decides to look for a ground-floor apartment where she can care for herself. Marcus' uncle Lou knows of a place that might do. He takes Maggie with him to deliver a computer that Marcus had revved up for Robert Locke, who manages a nearby apartment complex. Although Locke is not appealing, the complex is. Despite overhearing a loud fight between Locke and a tenant's boyfriend and almost being run over by a teenaged girl hiding in the apartment, Maggie concludes that Locke is offering a deal too good to turn down. When she returns the next day to sign a lease, however, she and Marcus find the office wrecked and Locke dead in the pool. Maggie's old boyfriend Tom, who's running the investigation, grudgingly asks Marcus to recover information from a crushed flash drive that may provide some leads. With a little help from their witchlike instincts, Maggie, Marcus and her employer Liss come up with a surprising conclusion.

Fans of Alt's Bewitching Mysteries will enjoy an unanticipated ending along with the eminently predictable continuing romance.

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