Title: Witch Hunt
Author: Cate Conte
Publisher: Kensington
Release Date: June 30, 2020
Pages: 304
Book Source: NetGalley
“Violet Mooney owns The Full Moon crystal shop in quaint North Harbor, Connecticut. Still grieving her beloved grandmother’s recent unexpected death, she takes comfort in her fat orange cat Monty and her work. Not everyone in town is thrilled with her business, however. When disagreeable town councilwoman Carla Fernandez picks a fight over Violet’s “voodoo shop,” the two have a very public confrontation. Of course, when Carla turns up dead, Violet gets little sympathy from the police as suspect #1.” – Amazon
Kim’s Review
My favorite cozy mystery is a paranormal one. And my favorite type of paranormal cozy is when a witch is just coming into her powers. I have read many of these so maybe because of that I’m being a bit harder on Witch Hunt by Cate Conte than others who have read it. But since I’ve read so many good paranormal series (Witchcraft Mysteries by Juliet Blackwell, Bewitching Mysteries by Madelyn Alt, and Wishcraft Mysteries by Heather Blake to name a few) Witch Hunt just didn’t leave me satisfied.
Cozies are notorious for the main character to reiterate information over and over while they try to work out what’s happening and which one of the people in their town is the killer. The good cozies also incorporate character growth and in depth details about the town or other historical facts while doing so. This is what makes the cozy series so enjoyable, learning new things about history or hobbies and finding characters that you could see yourself becoming friends with and wanting to invest your time reading future books with them in it. For me, Witch Hunt didn’t do this. Violet kept repeating the same information over and over but we didn’t get much history or growth of characters. Now it is the first book in a series so that could be overlooked, but Cate Conte aka Liz Mugavero has two other cozy mystery series out (Cat Cafe Mysteries and Pawsitively Organic Mysteries), so she knows how to write a cozy.
As for the magical aspect I was really enjoying the way the witches could move themselves and other objects through space and time… some while leaving a glitter trail! In a lot of witch cozies their powers are not as advanced. They might have premonitions or make magical potions, but to be able to teleport, that’s a very big power.
But I wanted more of the magic and magical townspeople. Conte does give us information on various crystals and a bit of history about witches, which was wonderful, but I wanted more. When Violet meets other magical townsfolk, it’s just to move the story along and we really don’t learn much about them. And there is division in the ranks of the witch world with someone trying to keep Violet from claiming her heritage, but while it’s talked about at the beginning nothing comes of it, and at the end of the book all is good.
I may give book two in the series a read, but I won’t rush out to get it and it would probably sit on my TBR pile for awhile.
Disclosure: Some of the links we use are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.