Not bad, not great.  Nothing new, but pleasantly written with genuinely nice characters.  Annabelle's grandmother is in town and she gets involved in the 'mystery' of course.  She sometimes skirts the bleeding edge of what's fast becoming a 'grandma' trope in cozies: an 80 year old with the body of a 60 year old and the maturity of a 20 year old.  There's a love triangle brewing too - not once has it been articulated, but you just know it's there, lurking.

Annabelle takes on a mural commission and while touring the new premises, finds a secret tunnel with a dead body.  Because it's not really a secret tunnel unless there's a dead body.

The mystery plotting was...ok.  I'm not sure anymore if whodunits are just being poorly plotted and written, or if the new trend is to make it obvious who the bad guys are, but keep the reader guessing as to which bad guy actually did the deed.  If this were real life the culprits would have been labelled inept before page 50.  Even in print, the false leads were weak beyond belief and the arrest made no sense.

But even so, this wasn't an unenjoyable read.  It was light and relaxing; I just won't go crazy for the next one.

Not a bad start for a new series.  Nothing really new here, but the characters are fleshed out and likeable, the setting vividly created and the plot was unbelievably twisted (in more ways than one) and labyrinthine.  I wasn't entirely clear what was going on until the end and even then I'd have liked to have known a few more details.

Artist Annabelle Britton decides to visit her best friend in the seaside town of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. But when she stumbles upon a smoky gray cat named Alastair, and follows him into a charming cottage, Annabelle finds herself in a whole spellbook full of trouble.

Soon, the mystery surrounding Alistair’s former owner, who died under unusual circumstances, grows when another local turns up dead. Armed with magic, friends, and the charmed cat who adopted her, Annabelle sets out to paw through the evidence and uncover a killer.

Alastair is awesome; in spite of his obvious magic, he still just acts like a cat.  There isn't a moment of romance in this book, but the author is obviously toying with a stupid love triangle, which diminished my appreciation for the story, but I'll definitely read the next book and see what happens next.

A great start to a new series.  There wasn't much I didn't like about it; likeable characters, a great plot that spanned the book without getting bogged down and a cat.  A cat that can disappear.  Oh and witches.  I know, totally irresistible, right?

Annabelle Britton arrives in Portsmouth, NH for a 2 week visit with BFF Martine.  Right after arriving, she encounters Alastair, a cat belonging to a recently deceased witch named Dorothy who died under mysterious circumstances, and Annabelle (Anna to her friends, A.B. when she's talking to herself) is drawn into solving the mystery 

The plot was well written, it had a good balance between the paranormal and the mystery.  Actually, now that I think about it, most of the sleuthing was done the old fashioned way, not by using spells and so on.  But it was well-paced with a lot of twists and turns.  And just the right number of characters to keep you guessing without being confusing.

The only thing I didn't like was that there were a few plot lines that were introduced and dropped.  A little annoying, but not terrible.

A solid start and a great read.  I'm looking forward to reading more about A.B. and her friends.

January is always a great book month for me, between the sales and my birthday, it's always the biggest haul month.  Luckily, it's summer holidays here so I'm mostly off work all month too, making it also a big reading month.

The b-day haul consisted of:

The Book of Human Emotion - Not absolutely sure about this, but it's done as a dictionary type setup, so I was intrigued.

Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen - Norris writes for The New Yorker and I've heard only good things about the book.

Tea, Coffee & Chocolate: How We Fell in Love with Caffeine - This is a no-brainer title and it's published by the Bodleian Library so I'm hoping that equates to a quality read.

My purchases:

Thirteen Guests - I heard good things about this one from someone here on BookLikes

The Masquerading Magician - A follow up to a promising first book in a series.

A Familiar Tail - First in a new series about cats and witches.

Stiff Competition - the latest in a great mystery series that always makes me laugh.

New books:  7

Books read:  8

Total physical books on TBR:  195 and gaining...  ;)