Synopsis
The right dress can be magic; the wrong one--murder!
Madeira, Maddie, Cutler, vintage clothing lover, and New York fashion designer, comes home to help plan her sister’s wedding. At the engagement party, the ‘Jezebel’ trying to steal Sherry’s fiancé is found strangled with a bridal veil, making Sherry the prime suspect. Besides seeking the real killer, Maddie alters Sherry’s vintage wedding gown, worn by generations of the groom’s family, and something odd happens. The gown gives Maddie visions, clues to the past . . . and the murder?
Maddie learns she’s psychometric, a psychic gift she inherited from her late mother, who was a broom-carrying witch, it turns out. What other gifts did she inherit? When not sleuthing, Maddie acquires the old Underhill Funeral Chapel Carriage House, including Dante Underhill, a chatty debonair ghost in tux and top hat, who can’t seem to leave the building. Watch out Mystic, Connecticut! Here comes Vintage Magic, a shop for vintage couture and designer originals, featuring a psychic sleuth, a hunk of a ghost, with a sprinkle of magic thrown in for ‘charm.’
Madeira, Maddie, Cutler, vintage clothing lover, and New York fashion designer, comes home to help plan her sister’s wedding. At the engagement party, the ‘Jezebel’ trying to steal Sherry’s fiancé is found strangled with a bridal veil, making Sherry the prime suspect. Besides seeking the real killer, Maddie alters Sherry’s vintage wedding gown, worn by generations of the groom’s family, and something odd happens. The gown gives Maddie visions, clues to the past . . . and the murder?
Maddie learns she’s psychometric, a psychic gift she inherited from her late mother, who was a broom-carrying witch, it turns out. What other gifts did she inherit? When not sleuthing, Maddie acquires the old Underhill Funeral Chapel Carriage House, including Dante Underhill, a chatty debonair ghost in tux and top hat, who can’t seem to leave the building. Watch out Mystic, Connecticut! Here comes Vintage Magic, a shop for vintage couture and designer originals, featuring a psychic sleuth, a hunk of a ghost, with a sprinkle of magic thrown in for ‘charm.’
Review
I
loved this book, which really surprised me because much of it concerns fashion,
both current and vintage, which I have no interest in. [Hey, it's not entirely my fault - I grew up
in a time and place where 'haute couture' meant your jeans and your sweatshirt
were both clean at the same time...] But
the author sold it to me and I actually found it very interesting.
The
heroine, Madeira [call me Mad] Cutler, head design assistant in a New York
fashion house is called home to Mystic Falls.
Officially she's supposed to help her youngest sister plan her wedding
and unofficially she's supposed to make sure there is going to be a wedding at
all. An old friend of the groom has
shown up and is acting like SHE is going to be the bride. Not good but Mad can fix anything - which
turns out to be a very good thing when she stumbles over the corpse of the
usurper strangled with Sherry's wedding veil and it looks like little sister is
the prime suspect. Of course she plans to fix this by finding out who really
did the deed.
To
this end she snoops, she gossips, she pulls strings - all while going up
against Detective-Sergeant Lytton Werner. The same Werner who in third grade
she called 'little wiener' in the school cafeteria - a nickname he has never
escaped even when he became a 6+ foot hunk.
And, yeah, he still blames her. He
considers her his own personal thorn...
And
then her life gets really strange - it seems that besides being able to see
ghosts [her family home is a haunted 250 year old inn] some vintage clothing
gives her glimpses into their past owner's lives. While she finds this spooky and
disconcerting, it does help her solve the current crime [and sheds much needed
light on past crimes as well.] She
finally breaks down and tells Nick, her on-again-off-again boyfriend, FBI agent
and brother's partner, about the visions and eventually he comes to believe
her. The trick is how to get the good
detective to look in the right places without explaining how she got the
information and without a lick of proof - because she is definitely NOT telling
him about the visions!
All
this is going on while Mad is having her own personal crises - she decides to
quit her job, buy the old carriage house/hearse barn and turn it into an
upscale [very, very upscale] dress shop selling high end vintage clothing and
her own designs which will be named Vintage Magic. It comes complete with yet another ghost -
one that is handsome, charming, and fond of chatting with those that can see
him.
A
word about the sex in this book - there's sizzle but all the actual contact
takes place 'off screen'. The romance is part of the series story arc so the romance issues are NOT resolved.
Vintage
Magic Mysteries
1. A
Veiled Deception
2.
Larcency and Lace
3.
Death by Diamonds
4.
Skirting the Grave
5. Cloaked in
Malice
6. Tulle Death Do
Us Part
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