Lindsay Buroker

This is a mature female MC second chance PNR cozy mystery.
It follows the cozy mystery pattern like drawing by numbers and it doesn't even do a very good job.
I believe this was entirely accidental. I don't think the author was aware of this herself.
The only difference is that this is only half of the story.

Maybe this was in part an issue of incorrect expectations. From the title, blurb, and cover I expected something different. Something more urban fantasy or at least romantic with a little more action.

The number of total characters in the book is very small. I have a relatively low frustration threshold for being bombarded with lots of characters so I actually enjoy more contained stories that are more limited in characters. But if you only have a few, they have to carry the story, which doesn't really happen here.
While I wasn't really frustrated or bored out of my mind there wasn't anything particularly captivating either. The entire book had very little substance and the characters were bland.
The most obvious flaw is the slow pacing which isn't helped by the MC circling around the same thoughts endlessly. There are a lot of words in this book that don't contribute to any aspect of the story. Usually, even in slow books, the words at least serve some world-building or character introduction/development purpose. Or it's just building atmosphere. None of those are the case here.

I very much feel like the author tried to make this first book sufficiently long without going through too much of the overall plot.
I have little interest in actually continuing the series despite a lot of open questions.

To be honest I can not really put my finger on the core issue here. It just felt off somehow.
Neither her "The Emperor's Edge" series nor "Death Before Dragons" felt so... uninteresting? I guess?

A few honorable mentions go out to the very intentional correction of a few very clichée misconceptions you read in basically every UF book. First, the wolf pack thing. Thank god someone finally explicitly pointed this out. It's a nice fairy tale about the whole pack hierarchy, but it's mostly just that. A fairy tale.
Second is the PC specialist and programmers are supaa-hakkas. For heaven's sake stop it already. Most people in IT have no clue how to hack anything and even if you are a real pro at your programming job doesn't mean shit in terms of actual hacking. Not to mention that most of the stuff hackers do in books is just plain impossible and wrong even if they have literal magic to help them. Thank you for not being one of those books!

EDIT:
I read the second and dropped the third book.
So let me say this first, I do NOT recommend this series. The only reason I rated this first book 3 stars is because there just doesn't happen anything to be angry about because it has no substance.
I have to correct a few of the impressions. First I'd like to revoke my complement for the wolf pack thing. The author forgot all about this and introduced the typical hierarchical wolf pack structure as you find in most fantasy with werewolves.

Second, the first book wasn't dull because the story hadn't picked up speed yet and hadn't reached the meat of the plot yet. There is a bit more direct conflict in the second book but it's not any more interesting than the first one.

My biggest issue with this series is the lack of logic and common sense. This was already the case in the first book but there was too little time to definitively call out this flaw because it could've been a twist in the making.

The priorities of the characters in this book are completely bonkers and completely illogical.
The MC is so ridiculously stupid in the way she misses any and all opportunities to improve her situation. While the book won't shut up about the MC being an introvert and non-confrontational she still ends up in situations where she defends herself and her stance but she never makes the logical arguments that could advance the plot in any way. Instead, she always ends up just helplessly waiting for the next disaster to hit. She is not completely passive or makes the classic kind of TSTL decisions that land her in hot water, but instead, she decides to not do things that might help her over and over. Not explicitly but for any reader that actively follows the plot, it becomes incredibly frustrating how she is not putting things right to defuse conflict which should be exactly what a shy introvert would do. Defuse conflict. But she doesn't, instead, she lets the situation escalate every opportunity she gets by omitting vital information.
This is all really vague so let me give you a spoiler-filled explanation

The witches claim the werewolves are a danger to the public and need to be controlled.
The MC repeatedly has conversations with various witches that don't personally have anything against the MC but are being driven against her by the coven because of their ridiculous werewolf bullshit.
They can literally freeze werewolves in place with magic, or instantly send them to sleep. Why the hell would they also need to control them like puppets with magic.
And I get that this whole thing is very obviously just a ploy to use the werewolves as their magically controlled tools and warriors.
But none of the "nice" witches seem to even consider any of this and the MC never makes any argument of any sort about this either despite being very much aware of it.
I think the excuse the author would give is the endlessly repeated "shy and introverted". I don't even want to count how many times she says this phrase. It's laughable.
But this really doesn't work as an excuse because the MC stands up for the werewolves. She deliberately and explicitly states that she thinks that controlling the werewolves is wrong. But she doesn't give any good argument for why. She never makes any of the many good points she could. There isn't a single instance in the entire series up to book 3 where a which actually has to control a werewolf to defend anyone except for cases where other witches deliberately steered these same werewolves to attack innocent people including the MC. Why does she never bring this up? Various people die along the way. DIE. And the witches are responsible every single time. How is this not worth being talked about? Everyone kind of just shrugs and forgets about it immediately I guess.
Furthermore, the witches argue that the MC only brings trouble and that she is against the coven.
But all the witches did from the very beginning is literally attack the MC. They tried to murder her like 4 times at least without a single provocation. They tried to burn her house down 2 times. Why does the MC never mention this to any of her sympathizing witches? It's incredibly frustrating and lacks any and all common sense. And there is no end to this bullshit in sight. Instead of actually doing anything about this the author just increases the frequency of her mentioning the phrase "shy and introverted".
If you read this with even a little bit of common sense you will probably lose your mind like I did.
And don't even get me started on how the MC STILL wants to join those witches. WTF?! They literally murdered innocent people! And yes, it was not the entire coven but just this one, no, two, no 3, no 4 witches (so far). But instead of starting a large-scale manhunt to bring those witches to justice they just removed one of them from the coven and that's it. They are even still meeting her and talking to her. And you want to be part of this bunch of psychopathic murderers because you want to be closer to the legacy of your gran? REALLY?
Who the fuck thought this was a reasonable reaction?
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