Broomsticks & Burials (Magic & Mystery, #1) by Lily Webb

Broomsticks and Burials by Lily Webb
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Unemployed journalist, Zoe Clarke, had almost given up on ever finding another newspaper job when, out of the blue, the editor of the Moon Grove Messenger, Mitch Harris, phoned and hired her sight unseen. Accepting, she caught the bus to her new town as instructed only to discover on arrival that Moon Grove was a town accessible only to witches, warlocks, vampires, and other supernatural beings. Unknown to Zoe, as her parents had been killed in a car accident when she was a small child, her heritage included witches. And that was not the only surprise greeting her. It turns out, her boss is a werewolf, her new roommate is a fairy, and the reporter she’s replacing was murdered while following a story!

Broomsticks & Burials is the first book in the Magic & Mystery series by author Lily Webb, and it is an impressive start. The characters are delightful, the town of Moon Grove charming, and the plot ticks along like a time bomb. This was a story I didn’t want to put down!

Zoe is a determined and capable young woman from the start. She gets the job done and still has the time and energy to pursue the forbidden story her predecessor was working. Her new roommate, Flora, is a beautiful fairy with a kind heart and a game spirit. I enjoyed their interactions a lot.

Zoe takes her cat, Luna, with her to her new beginning in Moon Grove, and I loved that once they were in town, Luna begins to talk. According to Luna, she was cursed to live life as a cat, and I look forward to finding out about that in the future.

Besides a compelling mystery story with scary vampires and a hard-nosed werewolf police chief and Zoe learning about her witchy powers, I liked the developing relationship with the local Channel 666 news anchor, shifter Beau Duncan. He shifts into a golden retriever, and it was fun seeing that animal’s characteristics represented when he was in his human form.

With its quaint shops and their appropriately supernatural names and offerings, Moon Grove is a charming town to be hidden away out of mortal sight. But I liked that it experiences its own issues with politics and governance like any other small town around.

In all, the story was a fun introduction to the series and an exciting murder mystery. I highly recommend it to cozy mystery readers that enjoy magical and paranormal elements in their stories.


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