A Veiled Deception (A Vintage Magic Mystery #1) by Annette Blair

A Veiled Deception by Annette Blair
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Madeira Cutler and her roommate, Eve Meyers, are returning home from New York City to Mystick Falls, Connecticut, for different reasons: Eve, to take a teaching position, and Maddie, to plan the wedding of her youngest sister, Sherry. But Maddie is thinking of leaving NYC behind permanently though. With Eve not coming back to their shared apartment and her career as the first assistant to the fashion designer, Faline, sucking the soul right out of her, she is thinking now might be the time for a change. Seeing her hometown, her family, and hunky on again/off again beau, FBI agent Nick Jaconetti, reinforces her feeling that returning to Mystick Falls may be her future.

The girls arrive at the Cutler family home just in time for Sherry and Justin’s engagement party, and swanning it around through all the guests is Sherry’s soon-to-be mother-in-law, awful Deborah Vancortland. At her side is Jasmine Updike, Justin’s ex-roommate from college, and the girl Deborah is pushing forward as a better match for her son than Sherry. But as the party heads toward a surprise reveal of Sherry’s vintage wedding gown, Maddie discovers Jasmine’s dead body upstairs in one of the family bedrooms strangled with Sherry’s vintage wedding veil. As the police fix their eyes on Sherry as their prime suspect, Maddie, Eve, and Nick try to turn up clues to identify the real killer.

A Veiled Deception is the first book in Annette Blair’s A Vintage Magic Mystery series, and it was an absorbing and entertaining debut especially with the fashion references and Maddie’s newly-emerging talents in the paranormal arena. She is a budding psychic and has been having visions of the past when she touches certain pieces of vintage clothing. The relationships between the characters were what I felt were really magical though. From the barely-restrained steam between Maddie and Nick to the close sisterly bonds between Maddie and Eve or Maddie and Sherry, character interaction really shone with special emotion. I recommend this book for cozy mystery readers that enjoy a little romance and like (or, at least, don’t mind) the presence of paranormal elements in their stories.


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