Hexes and Hemlines by Juliet Blackwell

Item: Hexes and Hemlines
Rating: 5
Author: karenbaron

Posted April 18, 2022 by karenbaron in Mystery, Paranormal, Review, Series / 0 Comments

Hexes and Hemlines

by Juliet Blackwell

Series: Witchcraft Mystery #3
Series Rating:

Published by Berkley Books on June 7, 2011
Genres: Cozy Paranormal Animal Mystery
Pages: 314
Format: Kindle
Goodreads
BookBub
Get Your Copy at: Amazon
Also in this series: Secondhand Spirits, A Cast-Off Coven, In a Witch's Wardrobe, , Tarnished and Torn, Fool's Gold, A Vision in Velvet, A Haunting is Brewing, Spellcasting in Silk

With her vintage clothing store taking off, Lily Ivory is finding that life in San Francisco suits her just fine. But her ability to sense vibrations from the past, so useful in locating secondhand gems, has landed her in the middle of a new mystery...

Lily gets called away from Aunt Cora's Closet when the police need a witch's take on a strange case. Malachi Zazi was stabbed to death in his apartment, under a ladder, surrounded by the number thirteen, a broken mirror, and a black cat—superstitions that the victim, as head of a rationalist society, was devoted to discrediting.

When the police identify a suspect from the Serpentarian Society, Lily is shocked to learn it's someone she knows. But with bad luck plaguing all its members, she begins to wonder if there's more at work than mere coincidence. And while there aren't many clues from the crime scene, Lily finds evidence of dark witchcraft and a hex on her friend's doorstep. With her friend's safety at stake, Lily is determined to use magic to find the murderer before everyone's luck runs out...

Hexes and Hemlines by Juliet Blackwell is where Lily is worrying about whether or not Max can handle her being a witch.

Will Lily figure out what happened to Malachi Zazi?

Lily Ivory

Lily Ivory is our sleuth, and I feel bad for her. She is a natural witch trying to figure things out for herself. Well, mainly with finding her place to call home, as that has been hard. Lily is a sweet person, albeit a bit naive when it comes to certain situations. She has a familiar named Oscar, and we learn more about him which is nice. Living above a place that is potentially your wardrobe is fantastic because she would be a walking billboard for her store. Lily is an excellent character, and I can’t wait to see how everything plays for her. Especially with either Aidan or Max.

Malachi Zazi

Our victim is a man named Malachi Zazi, and at first, the police are confused about how they found him. Especially for Lily as she couldn’t feel anything around him. Lily investigates him because she’s a bit weirded out when she can’t feel anything and even more when it’s found out that someone else she cares about is affected by Malachi being deceased. Malachi’s life was weird, and I felt sad once it all came out about why he was gone and how he was living his life.

Five Stars

My rating for Hexes and Hemlines by Juliet Blackwell is five stars, and I’m recommending it to anyone that loves an excellent cozy paranormal mystery. Lily Ivory is one of my favorite characters. I like how Ms. Blackwell spends time on her research whenever she’s doing one of these stories, as you can genuinely feel it. The magic system she has created for these characters is fantastic. Ms. Blackwell has done a superb job with everything for this story. I mainly got caught up in the red herrings that I didn’t think who the actual culprit was.

I’m off to read In a Witch’s Wardrobe now.

Other Books in the Witchcraft Mystery Series

Thank you for dropping by! I hope you enjoyed this review of Hexes and Hemlines by Juliet Blackwell.

Until the next time,

Happy Reading!

About Juliet Blackwell

Juliet Blackwell was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, the youngest child of a jet pilot from New York and an editor from Texas. She graduated with a degree in Latin American Studies from University of California, Santa Cruz, and went on to earn Masters degrees in Anthropology and Social Work from the State University of New York, Albany.

While in graduate school she published several articles based on her research with immigrant families from Mexico and Viet Nam, as well as one full-length translation: Miguel León-Portilla’s seminal work, Endangered Cultures. Juliet taught Medical Anthropology at SUNY-Albany, was a producer for a BBC documentary about Vietnamese children left behind by US soldiers, and worked as an elementary school social worker in rural New York. Upon her return to California, she became a professional artist and ran her own decorative painting, historical renovation, and domestic design studio for more than a decade.

In addition to mainstream novels, Juliet pens the New York Times Bestselling Witchcraft Mysteries and the Haunted Home Renovation series. As Hailey Lind, she wrote the Agatha Award-nominated Art Lover’s Mystery series. She is past president of Northern California Sisters in Crime and former board member of Mystery Writers of America.

Juliet lives in a hundred-year-old house with extensive botanical gardens in Northern California but spends as much time as possible in Europe and Latin America. She believes in the magic of language, travel, and cultural exchange to open hearts, minds, and souls.

Reading this book contributed to these challenges: