Another New Series!!

I have found another new series!  The Stacy Justice series by Barbra Annino.  I found this series through the compilation Every Witch Way But Wicked.  As you may know from previous posts, I can not stand to start in the middle of a series, so when I started reading "A Tale of Two Witches" by Christiana Miller and Barbra Annino and realized that the characters mentioned within were established in other series, I immediately stopped reading the story and started the respective series'.  I did enjoy Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie She's Dead by Christiana Miller (where some of the characters in the story originate) and will post my review soon.  However, I was really drawn in by Annino's Stacy Justice.  Opal Fire is the first book in the series and it introduces us to Stacy Justice, a woman born into a family of witches but does not want to accept her prophesied role as the Seeker.  She has recently moved back to the small town of Amethyst and the lives of her family, including her grandmother Birdie and great-aunts Fiona and Lolly, collectively known as the Geraghty Girls and revered as the local witches.  Stacy believes and understands the magic held by her family but refuses to embrace the magic as a part of her.  However, when her cousin Cinnamon's bar, The Black Opal, burns to the ground under mysterious circumstances, Stacy has to harness everything in her power, including her powers, to prove Cinnamon wrongly accused and bring justice to another lost soul.  In the second book, Bloodstone, Stacy is faced with accepting her role in the family in order to help a long lost sister (?) and protect a centuries old secret.  She must learn to face her own demons regarding magic and find her place within the family hierarchy.

Both books are well-written and contain compelling characters.  The Geraghty Girls alone are worth reading both books, but the other characters are as well-written and likable.  Stacy is real, with real problems, magic aside, and very likable.  She is surrounded by friends and family that are both skeptical about her family and supportive of the craziness.  You want to read about her, her life and the town and you want her to triumph over whatever circumstances she finds herself in.  I thoroughly enjoyed both Opal Fire and Bloodstone and look forward to reading the third Stacy Justice book Tiger's Eye due out in 2012.

A Hard Day's Fright by Casey Daniels

I love the Pepper Martin series :)  It's like chick lit wrapped in a mystery with a paranormal bow on top.  Pepper is such an interesting character--a survivor with an impeccable sense of fashion.  After the high society world she was groomed for falls apart, thanks to her father & some Medicare fraud, she picks herself up, dusts herself off and gets a job as a tour guide at the local cemetery.  A mishap at the cemetery leaves Pepper with an interesting gift:  she can communicate with the dead.  She can see, hear and speak to them.  Apparently, she is quite a novelty because after word starts spreading around the afterlife, she keeps getting approached by souls with unfinished business.

A Hard Day's Fright (A Pepper Martin Mystery) is the seventh installment in the Pepper Martin series.  Pepper gets approached by a young girl who was murdered in 1966, the night she attended a Beatles concert with some friends.  She needs Pepper to find her body so she can rest in peace.  Unfortunately, her body was never found and Lucy can not seem to leave the Rapid (train) car that holds her last happy memory, so Pepper is basically on her own.  Until, she discovers that Ella not only knew Lucy, but was with her that fateful night at the Beatles concert.

Casey Daniels really surprised me in this one.  I really thought I had it all figured out about 2/3 of the way through the book and actually wondered how she was going to drag the book out for that much longer without Pepper figuring it out--when I found out that I was wrong.  I had a part of the mystery right, but there was so much more going on.  Not only did she provide an interesting mystery, but the changes to Pepper's personal life were pretty remarkable as well.  Now, I can't wait to read the next book in order to find out how Pepper snaps back.

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Deborah Harkness' debut novel, A Discovery of Witches: A Novel, is amazing.  I was drawn in from the first and did not want to put it down.  It's like a mature Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1) meets The Da Vinci Code.  The characters are interesting and complex, the story is exciting without being too ambitious or overcomplicated.  The book held me spellbound and is responsible for a few hours of lost sleep. It's an historical-supernatural-romance-adventure-mystery--my favorite genres wrapped into an exceptionally good book.

Diana Bishop is not going to use her magic--at least, that's what she keeps telling herself.  She is the last in a long line of powerful witches, with a father as powerful as her mother.  However, having lost her parents when she was seven years old has turned her away from her heritage and her magic.  While researching alchemical manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, she comes in contact with a volume that reaches out to her magic.  Panicked, she returns the book to the stacks, but it is too late--word is out that she has discovered the lost Ashmole 782 and now all species of creatures are after her.

Enter Matthew Clairmont, renowned scientist and vampire.  He has been searching for Ashmole 782 for centuries and is determined to retrieve the book Diana has recalled.  He feels drawn to Diana, feeling the need to protect her from the other creatures, despite witches and vampires being notorious separatists.  They are thrown into an uneasy friendship when the worlds of witches, vampires and daemons descend upon Diana, all looking for the manuscript.

A Discovery of Witches: A Novel is one of the best books I've read in quite a while.  It's clearly written to have a sequel, possibly more than one, and I am anxiously awaiting the next book.  I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading.