Stormy Morgan left her hometown of Shadow Hills, Michigan, with one goal: to write the great American novel and strike it rich. She sold her novel not long after college, did relatively well, and then fell off a cliff into obscurity. Now, without a book contract, she’s back at her family restaurant in a one-stoplight town … and she’s convinced things couldn’t possibly get worse.That feeling only … feeling only lasts until her first shift, when on a trip to the storage building behind the restaurant, she literally trips over a body.
Roy Axe, Shadow Hills most hated “Axehole,” died a hard death only feet from the restaurant (and the second-floor apartment Stormy currently resides in). The detective on the case is none other than Hunter Ryan, Stormy’s high school boyfriend, and the man who occasionally still calls to her in dreams. Hunter only cares about solving a mystery – nothing else – so their reunion is tense.
In an attempt to distract herself from what’s happening, Stormy and her cousin Alice get drunk one night and pull out their great-grandmother’s old Ouija board, and it sets off a strange string of events, most of which seem magical … if you believe in that sort of thing, and Stormy isn’t sure she does.
Stormy has trouble deciding which problem to focus on, so she avoids them all until things start blowing up in her face.
Shadow Hills is a small town but the secrets that plague it run deep. Stormy is a woman – or maybe a witch – lost in a sea of magic and despair … but murder might just lead her out of it. That is if she can survive to solve the case, that is.
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Great start to a new series!
This is the first in a new series and it hooked me. It had great characters. The heroine, Stormy is snarky and funny and going thru a bit of personal growth. The Hero, Hunter is sweet and strong at the same time. I can’t wait for the next one!
A great new series takes flight…
I love how Amanda writes her books so she can link series to series with eventual cross-overs to build her awesome supernatural world more. I also love how new characters remind me of old characters who I love so much, it’s like coming home and curling up with my favorite blanket and even though they might remind me of other characters, each one of Amanda’s characters has their own distinct and unique personality which I just love.
Stormy is just awesome, she left her small town to pursue her writing dreams and in the end, I think what she may find is that she never needed to leave to make her writing dreams come true, I think she needed to leave so she could realize home is where her heart will always be…
Hunter, gorgeous, sexy mixed up Hunter…lol oh he might as well just give it all up now he always has been and always will be Stormy’s man, that is even more apparent with his choice of current girlfriend lol he picks the total opposite of Stormy.
So first day back at the family restaurant and Stormy literally stumbles over a dead body… and it’s someone her Grandfather had a continuous relationship with but there is no way her curmudgeonly old grandfather killed this guy… But then why is he avoiding the police???
I truly enjoyable read.
I love the majority of the books written by Amanda Lee, but I am reserving judgment on this one. It appeared to be a mish-mash of several elements from other series. The trademark snark (which I usually love) was pretty juvenile in this one – really, the grandfather licking the food to be served to a customer? And every other sentence was “Hunter” – the murder mystery definitely took a backseat in the storyline. The witch thing seemed to be thrown in at random. I realize this is the first in a series and those generally aren’t the best books in the series while the author is setting up the background and characters, so I will be giving the second one a chance to see if this evens out.
Sometimes dreams don’t work out how you’d expect. Changing yourself to try to make them happen sometimes leaves you alone as those who weren’t like the real you move on.
Then heaven help you if you go back home.
They say family is where you go where they have to take you in. That isn’t true of all blood kin, but it might be true of like kind.
At the dark edges of a small town the mostly hidden secrets that remain are ugly. Once true love might be tempting and tested, and things might get a little freakishly magically real.
Intense and reflective KU story!