Owner of the White Magic Five and Dime Shop, Alanis is just trying to get by, set a good example for her younger sister and make up for the wrongs of her con artist mother. Things get bumpy when a mysterious stranger gets a tarot reading from her, that seems to be threatening and then ends up dead on the same night that her long dead step father  shows up out of the blue. The adventure will see her life threatened by an old lady with a less than firm grasp on an uzi, have her investigating an old art theft and willing to deal with maybe even the devil himself to see that her loved ones are safe from harm.

Though not necessarily a bad thing, this is is not a typical cozy. The heroine is not a classic good girl, there is loads of profanity and plot just can’t seem to decide which direction it wants to go in. There is this great magic shop with a tarot spin, and there is a con a minute theme running a long game with Biddle at one end and GW at the other conning the money guy, looking for one last score, etc. Finally, there is the private eye vibe with Alanis being undercover along with her teen cyber detection team and the obvious mob connections. It does all tie together, but it makes for a very busy un-cozy like story line.

That said there are many great things about the book to recommend it, including a cast of clever and surprising characters. The main characters are fabulous, but they are nothing compared to the color characters; a  stodgy lawyer with a billing fetish who knows more than he is willing to tell, an investigative reporter with an unexpected ax to grind, an art collector who isn’t what he seems, among others. I also felt that that the tarot cards were a fabulous way to introduce the chapters. I enjoyed seeing what the cards looked like as I have zero experience with tarot in general. This was was a good enough story to make me curious about the first books in the series and I certainly am willing to come back and visit these characters again someday.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The first book in this series The White Magic Five and Dime took me by surprise: it was billed as a cozy - and it was - but had a very edgy (for cozies) premise and backstory.  The MC has a shady past, being raised by a thoroughly corrupted mother and mom's boyfriend, growing up while being dragged from one con and scam to the next, until she was old enough to participate in them herself (old enough being under the age of reason - 5?).  She finally runs away and tries to make an honest life for herself and the first book brings us in when she's contacted about her mother's death and her inheritance: a tarot shop her mom was running as a front.

I thought at the time it was a stand-alone, but obviously not, and I picked up the second book Fool Me Once some time ago.  It was a quick read and continues to balance that edgy backstory with a cozy mystery setting in a small town and Alanis trying to make amends to her mother's victims.

I don't think I can say I like Alanis; as the reader you're privy to her view on other people and her automatic categorisation of everyone she meets.  She wants redemption but struggles to see people as more than objects or to connect with them (because that requires honesty, a virtue alien to the first half of her life).  But she does have a killer smart-ass tongue and her determination to do the right thing keeps the reading entertaining.

The murder plot is... so-so.  The killer is a mystery until it isn't because the plot is designed that way - a late introduction of many suspects keeps the reader in the dark.  This irritates some readers, but I'm ambivalent: it's fun knowing you've figured out the clues and solved the puzzle, but it's also nice to be able to thoroughly enjoy the whole book, something that can be harder to do when you've nailed the killer in chapter 4.

The authors integrate tarot really nicely into these books: each chapter starts with the (cheeky) description of one of the cards and what its common interpretation is. Whenever Alanis does a reading, they actually illustrate the layout of the cards she's using and an illustration of each card as it's turned over.  I'm only mildly curious about tarot and their use of the illustrations and descriptions was enough without being too much.

The third book is out, but this is one of those books that falls in an odd gap for me - I liked it, and thought it was very well written and it held my attention, but I'm not feeling a need to have the next book.  It'll go on my list, but likely will stay there until I have more cash than must have books, or I find it at a bargain price.

Chosen randomly from my TBR stacks (which are organised by subject), this is the list of books to be focussed on for May, plus two that didn't fit above, and whatever else appeals to me from the greater mountain range that is my TBR:

The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde and 

Everyday Things for Lively Youngsters by T.J.S. Rowland

A few of these are going to be very quick reads, thank goodness because there's at least one or two weighty titles there too.  Right this minute, what appeals to me the most is Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar... Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes.  I seem to be in a non-fiction mood at the moment.

Hope everyone has some good books to look forward to this month. 

pretty good book but would have been better if I was reading it with someone younger

I had to re-arrange space this week to accommodate my TBR because the piles had become structurally unsound.  I've moved all my MMPs to the fireplace mantle with the avowed goal of getting through them.  Weeks like this do not help me out one bit.  I actually toyed with a buying ban for about 10 seconds, then checked my email and saw Wordery is having a 10% off 2 or more books sale and figured that was karma talking and gave up.

Books bought this week: 8

Books read this week: 6

The following books came from BookLikes friends' reviews:

These were impulse buys at the bookstore:

And these are new-in-series I already follow: