Black Magic Kitten (Familiar Kitten Mysteries #1)

by Sara Bourgeois

Kinsley gave up magic when she left Coventry at seventeen but now she's divorced and broke and has to go back home. Her first night back she discovers a dead body and now many people in the town say she killed him. She's reunited with her black cat familiar and makes some new and old friends, all the while trying to clear her name and practicing her magic again.

This was a very quick read with entertaining characters interactions and a decent enough magic mystery, though nothing terribly unique. I enjoyed the town and the character dynamics, though it seems slightly unrealistic that everyone would believe the main character came back just to murder someone she never met. There were also several editing errors and a lot of repeated phrases that could have used some cleaning up. Still, not a bad cozy mystery novella.

Spellbound - The Workings of DrugTech

by Marcel V Sahade

This was an excellent book, written as a collection of short stories that all eventually tie in together in some way or another. It made for a lot of characters and stories to have to keep track of but they were all pretty interesting. The end of each "chapter", which may or may not have corresponded to the end of that story, tended to have an interesting twist, usually playing with the theme of dealing with unintended consequences for the character's actions. It made for a quick and exciting read once you got into it and started seeing the connections.

The Traitor in the Trees (A Hemoertha Chronicle #1)

by M Dane

Traitor in the Trees is an interesting blend of fantasy and science fiction, with elves and dwarves and funny looking animals in a tree world, but also elements of technology and the evidence of aliens. Ricci is a human thrust into this world but surprisingly finds himself feeling at home, making new friends and excelling at many tasks and training at school. But someone is methodically stealing the Protection Seeds that protect the tree city and if the last one is taken, it could spell doom for everyone in that world. Ricci has his suspicions about who did it but no one will believe him and by the time everyone knows the truth, it may be too late.

At first I didn't care for the beginning as it felt like the reader was just thrust into the middle of a story and it does continue with little backstory throughout a lot of the book. This makes it fast-paced for sure, but leaves the reader with a lot of questions as you go along. But as you get into the story, there's some excellent world building with this strange land high up in the trees and fun character interactions. There were also some interesting deviations from the normal fantasy expectations, such as the dwarf loving vegetables and the elf being the meat-lover, for example. Overall I found it to be a fun children's book.