Witch Is When It All Began

This is a fun and quirky cozy mystery that had me smiling off and on and outright laughing a few times.

Jill is trying desperately to succeed as a PI following in her Dad's footsteps but not a lot of jobs are coming her way till the day she is hired to find a serial killer cause the police are ignoring the possibility that their town even has a serial killer.

In the meantime Jill's biological Mom is dying and she is called to the nursing home because she wants to tell Jill something before she dies. Prior to this her mother has always rebuffed any attempts on Jill's part to meet and get to know each other. Then on her deathbed she calls Jill a witch. Jill is hurt and disappointed as one would expect.

What follows is a fun awakening for show more Jill and a mystery that comes full circle. I love the characters which all have different personalities, some cute, some eccentric and some sneaky. I definitely will be reading more of this series. show less

On a positive note, this book was very light-hearted and easy to read. The general premise is wonderful and is what drew me in to the story. A PI who finds out she's a witch! How can she use that to help her solve cases and probably get herself into trouble? I wanted to know!

As it turned out, I'd have to slog through a lot of conversations that went nowhere and taught me very little about the main character or any of the supporting characters (of which there are many) to get to the story, and that was sadly thin as we didn't get any detective work (or real direction) until after half way through the novel.

Ok, maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way. Perhaps the main story isn't about the detective work but of her finding out she's a show more witch and just happens to be a detective; however, even at that all we have is the character trying out spells and talking to people for 80% of the novel. Where is the direction?

There's a forced romance between Jill and Maxwell, another detective, that has absolutely no chemistry. It's more lifeless than a corpse on the morgue slab.

When we get somewhat interesting Harry Potter/Lord of the Rings/Shannara/Wheel of Time-esque ideas like the "Followers" of the "Dark One" trying to kill her, it's immediately dropped. That's a pretty important thing to be ignoring. Heck, Jill and her aunt took down two of these "creatures" (we don't learn what they are) and they immediately start talking about Jill visiting more often... what?!

I could go on about more of the strange ideas in the story - time stands still in the human world while Jill is in the witch world? This obviously can only work for Jill because if it worked for every other witch then time would only move forward when all of them were out of the witch world.

Anyway, when we get to the detective work it feels rushed and not earned. Jill didn't show any detective work other than to ask questions then relied heavily on spells to carry her. The police are incompetent in their jobs.

Maybe I'm over thinking it.

This story is supposed to be just a fun, mindless foray into a world where a female PI finds out she a witch and the crazy shenanigans that come from that, and I suppose it succeeds at that. It's too bad that I had to wade through chapters of mindless dialogue to get there.

It's kind of like Kathy's biscuit tins that are filled with different kinds of biscuits. We're just wading through looking for the good ones.

Perhaps it's just not my Cuppy tea. show less

This was a fluffy and fun read. Enjoyable, but not much depth. The main character, Jill, finds out she is a witch when her birth mother dies, and has to juggle being a PI and learning magic. While Jill herself is kind of a blank slate (her personality is rather bland, and I have no clue what she looks like since the author doesn't really describe her), the secondary characters are quite well fleshed out, from Mrs V to Winky. (Though her sister Kathy makes me cringe. The exact kind of nosy, meddling person I hate.)

The mystery was also decent, though not the main focus of the book, other than as a vehicle for Jill to learn and try out certain spells.

I loved many parts of this books, but was a bit perplexed by other parts.

Jill's reaction to discovering magic is perfection. One of the best written normal becomes witch sequences I've read in a cozy mystery. Very much how I would imagine most would react the the strange events that are happening to her.

Overall I enjoyed the layout of the mystery, but felt that Jill was a very not on top of her job PI. I guess she did just find out she was a witch but it just wasn't as believable how little work she put in on the case. There were also strange event sequences happening, where she'd have a tense confrontation scene, and then we'd switch to a hang out scene. At one point I flipped back thinking I missed a chapter because there was no show more explanation to how she left a confrontation. This series also seems to be playing the police are idiots trope, but not fully sure yet.

I did enjoy the way the magic worked in this world, very unique and look forward to learning more about her witch family. show less

Cute! Quick read, no great shakes, but fun.

Witch-eretaining

Adele Abbott’s tale is a delightful, light introduction to the P.I. Jill and her two families. Looking forward to reading more of the “Witch is When” series. The story attracts the reader’s interest in an easy-to-read work that entertains and provides a solid story.

I really enjoy this series - it is funny and easy to get into. I like that nothing is too terribly dark and twisted. Each book ends on a little cliffhanger so of course you must keep going onto the next! You'll want to, I promise!