I really like this series, but there are a few things that are starting to bother me, mostly in how slowly it's moving (almost to the point where I am honestly kind of losing respect for basically everyone in the town, especially Willa), but there are other issues, as well. My grievances are as follows:

- The "paperweight." Really? This seems to be a useful item for Willa to understand and maybe figure out by book 3, but here we are and she still has no idea that it's more than a paperweight. And, it's not even like it's that big of a mystery, it's just that even though she always looks at it and thinks it's the drapes or whatever reflected in it, she never actually PICKS IT UP and examines it when it catches her eye, which is what I think anyone else would do. Willa knows that the glass balls the cats led her to are fire grenades (early fire extinguishers) due to her going to all those estate and antique sales, but she hasn't figured out the paperweight (BOTH UNUSUAL AND AN ANTIQUE, of which she is always bragging that she knows a lot about) is basically a crystal ball? And, if Elspeth has one and knows Willa hasn't figured out what it is WHY DOESN'T SHE JUST TELL HER after all this time??

- Willa's injured leg? I feel like there is something related to Willa's injured leg and the detection of magic being used around her or when questionable people are around her, like it causes her extra pain to give her a heads up as a dowsing rod of some sort. It is never fully addressed, but the hints at it also aren't stopping. She seems to experience the pain related to the actual injury less now, but that just means that when it DOES pain her now (like when she was in the basement at the end of this book), it seems to mean something significant, but it gets added to the list of the magical things she hasn't figured out yet.

- Now Striker sees ghosts?? In book 4, the novella starring Pandora, I was absolutely confused about how Striker all of a sudden can also see ghosts, even though, as far as I could tell(?), this was never alluded to as a thing in any of the previous books. We don't even know what brought this on! Willa started to see them after a near-death experience, but Striker just apparently started to see them for no reason? Maybe there is some backstory we don't know about? I hope all of this is addressed when (please don't be "if" *sigh*) they FINALLY talk to each other about it, which I hope is in the next book. Ugh. My rage over this may seem disproportionate considering we only found out in book 4 that Striker can see ghosts; however, let's remember that Willa has been hiding this from EVERYone but Pepper since book 1 (or, to be more accurate, for like three years since that is how long she's been back in Mystic Notch and since seeing ghosts was due to her accident which is what brought her back to Mystic Notch in the first place). I was going to let it go... I mean, we don't have to know EVERYthing about every character and it's okay for authors to have a little something up their sleeve; however, with this last book, I couldn't let it go anymore, which brings me to my next point.

- Endless waffling about relationship. I am not sure why there has to be this prolonged agony with Willa and Striker actually getting together. It was bad enough before when for seemingly no reason they were on again/off again (I think the excuse was both having been hurt previously, so they were taking things slowly--but taking things slowly is different from being on again/off again, which came out of the blue). Anyway, now I feel like Striker seeing ghosts has been invented as a mechanism for two completely disparate purposes:

-- First to drive a wedge between Willa and Striker (for absolutely no reason--they are already on again/off again due to hurt feelings in previous relationships and having a hard time committing)

-- Then to have them realize they are "perfect" for each other (like the thing that brings them together will not be anything substantial or a resolution of whatever concerns they have, just the idea that they must be "perfect" because they can both see ghosts but ghosts on different planes so it makes them great partners in crime-solving AND in life or something ridiculous like that)

So, now it's just absolutely PAINFUL as the reader that Willa and Striker won't tell each other about the ghosts they see. For one thing, it's just silly to be with someone that you can't be totally honest with, especially when it's RUINING YOUR RELATIONSHIP not to be honest!! For another, all of that hiding things from each other could really be dangerous and harmful with actual consequences for people in Mystic Notch. If they had just been honest with each other, this mystery could have been solved in, like, one day and other people wouldn't have been in danger.

- Fires. Speaking of being in danger, in three of these five books, everything comes to a head... and Willa is trapped in a room that is on fire. This seems to be the only tense situation that Dobbs can think of to end these stories with. Unimaginative and boring. It's like calling in to work because the same grandmother "died" six times. Oh, and where was Hope when this fire was going on? She is conspicuously, conveniently missing altogether during the ending when aaaaaaaall the other cats were there--she could have totally stopped that fire with her fire powers, as I'm assuming she can't just start fires and she can also put them out.

- Pandora. How many times is Willa going to "wonder if Pandora is trying to tell her something"? My god, even Evie in this last book was like, "I think the cats are trying to tell us something!" and Willa was like, "Oh, I guess she's right!" WTF. My cat isn't magical, from an order of ancient cats that protects humans, telepathic, or fluent in human-meow talk, and even *I* can tell when she is trying to tell me something and what that something is. Granted, we aren't solving murders together, but I'm pretty sure if we were we'd work together better than Willa and Pandora do. It is ludicrous that Willa still hasn't figured all this out about Pandora.

- Repetitive phrase. This is nitpick-y, but I am tired of Willa's blood "running cold" or "being chilled" when something scary happens--it happens three times in this book. It happens in the previous books, too (even to Pandora in book 4 whose blood both freezes and boils!), but at the most twice. I am sure there is another phrase that can be used instead.

- Pepper's disappearance. This was just odd. For whatever reason, Pepper was "on vacation" for the beginning, then randomly returns home in the middle as a way for Willa to get in to the Hamilton mansion, then she completely disappears again! Usually Pepper is "peppered" all over these books for Willa to bounce ideas off and as a way for Willa to get into places or access people she may not normally be able to. Come to think of it, her bookstore foursome was mostly missing from this book as well. I can only imagine this was done because Striker shows up all over the place in this one and so maybe Pepper and the others would seem superfluous... except that Willa didn't actually talk Striker about ANYthing useful or tell him the truth about anything. Or maybe it's supposed to show Willa's growing independence with solving these murders. I have no idea. It's like Willa's usual support system was taken away, but I am not sure why?

- Everyone is such "great friends," but no one trusts each other. It's not just Willa and Striker being dishonest with each other--the whole town is dishonest with her (and vice versa). I touched a little bit on this above with the paperweight, but I am mystified, particularly this far in the series, about why everyone continues to be so secretive and shifty with Willa (and vice versa) when she is CLEARLY integral to everything that is going on. Why doesn't everyone (Elspeth, Bing, etc.) just TELL HER everything instead of patronizingly advising her to "believe in magic"? Wouldn't it behoove them to have her in on everything, particularly if protecting the town is apparently their #1 priority and she clearly isn't getting it on her own? Maybe it's some sort of "you have to figure this out on your own to come into your true powers" kind of thing, but that makes no sense because Willa already has powers and they know that, she just isn't connecting all the other things. Any excuses from either Willa or the others about "being embarrassed" or "worrying people won't believe them" is silly this far into things. Willa's been back for something like THREE YEARS. How long are they going to wait for her to get a clue about all this?? At least with ghosts they "lose their memory" so they can't be more specific about things, which helps with the mystery side (though even then there still have been a couple who did remember things but wouldn't tell Willa even though they needed her help!), but where world-building is concerned with the mysticism of the town and the people in it, I am annoyed about the dishonesty--everyone is supposed to be so closely knit but in reality no one trusts each other and they never work together. Hell, even JOHN THE BUTLER from this last book seems to be in on the town protection! Also, I have no idea why her grandma didn't just leave her a letter saying, "I know all of this is weird, but the paperweight isn't a paperweight it's a crystal ball, Pandora is magical and you should listen to her, the town is constantly at war with good and evil and Elspeth and Bing and all the cats are in on it" and whatever else Willa needs to know. It just seems like it has gotten to the point where people are cutting off their nose to spite their face with this continued secrecy.

I listened to the previous five books on audio, but for some reason, book 6 isn't available in that format and I'm already reading a couple other things so it might take me a while to read book 6. Though, maybe a break from this series would be okay (and maybe the audiobook for book 6 will be available by then). I am willing to try book 6, but I will likely abandon the series if the majority of the issues I mentioned above do not improve in that book. Though, on the other hand, I also fear that it will all be rushed to make up for poor pacing earlier and this series will take the turn that the Wishcraft series took, where nothing happened for four books, then allofasudden all the things happened in book five for no reason and was just unnatural and jolting. ( )