Overview
Bestseller Melanie Rawn plunges down the back stairs of the old South into a dark world of family secrets and the international flesh trade that lies underneath the surface of small town politics and romance.
Holly McClure and Evan Lachlan have survived the fiery beginning of their romance and left Manhattan for Holly’s ancestral home to raise their children. Evan’s the county Sheriff; Holly is still a trouble-making Spellbinder trying to manipulate her family as if they were characters in one of her novels.
But something’s not right in Pocahontas County. Churches are being burned down in mysterious arsons with a taint of magic on them. Sheriff Lachlan suspects that they have something to do with the new owners of the old Westmoreland plantation, now a very upscale Inn, but even if he could find proof, it’s going to be hard to bring a case of Black Magic before a Judge — even in Pocahontas County, where witchcraft is the family business of all the oldest clans.
Synopsis
Bestseller Melanie Rawn plunges down the back stairs of the old South into a dark world of family secrets and the international flesh trade that lies underneath the surface of small town politics and romance.
Holly McClure and Evan Lachlan have survived the fiery beginning of their romance and left Manhattan for Holly’s ancestral home to raise their children. Evan’s the county Sheriff; Holly is still a trouble-making Spellbinder trying to manipulate her family as if they were characters in one of her novels.
But something’s not right in Pocahontas County. Churches are being burned down in mysterious arsons with a taint of magic on them. Sheriff Lachlan suspects that they have something to do with the new owners of the old Westmoreland plantation, now a very upscale Inn, but even if he could find proof, it’s going to be hard to bring a case of Black Magic before a Judge — even in Pocahontas County, where witchcraft is the family business of all the oldest clans.
Publishers Weekly
Smalltown politics and big-city newcomers mix badly with a family of rural magicians in this dreary modern fantasy. Bestselling author Holly Lachlan has come home to Pocahontas County, Va., with her adoring husband, Evan (a former U.S. marshal, now the county sheriff). Together they attend a fund-raising party at an antebellum mansion turned into an upscale inn by a strange German investor. Herr Weiss's hotel is chock-full of sinister secrets, and the assembled guests-including a charming DA and some of Holly's magically endowed relatives-must combine forces to investigate. The premise has promise, but the mystery elements don't gain much of a foothold until late in the game, and Rawn (Spellbinder) frequently interrupts them with vast swaths of left-wing political pontification, elaborate matchmaking attempts and cutesy fawning between the protagonists. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Smalltown politics and big-city newcomers mix badly with a family of rural magicians in this dreary modern fantasy. Bestselling author Holly Lachlan has come home to Pocahontas County, Va., with her adoring husband, Evan (a former U.S. marshal, now the county sheriff). Together they attend a fund-raising party at an antebellum mansion turned into an upscale inn by a strange German investor. Herr Weiss's hotel is chock-full of sinister secrets, and the assembled guests-including a charming DA and some of Holly's magically endowed relatives-must combine forces to investigate. The premise has promise, but the mystery elements don't gain much of a foothold until late in the game, and Rawn (Spellbinder) frequently interrupts them with vast swaths of left-wing political pontification, elaborate matchmaking attempts and cutesy fawning between the protagonists. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Library Journal
Relocating from Manhattan to rural Virginia, practicing witch and popular novelist Holly McClure and Evan Lachlan, her police detective-turned-county sheriff husband, encounter a dark mystery involving a serial arsonist, a refurbished plantation, and the suspicion of Black Magic. Returning to the characters first introduced in Spellbinder, Rawn crafts a story of the old vs. the new South, hidden family secrets, and the power of superstition to blind us to the truth. With their witty dialog and genuine affection for each other, McClure and Lachlan make a good team. This "urban fantasy" set in a distinctly nonurban setting belongs in most fantasy collections.
—Jackie Cassada