BOOK REVIEW: Casting Spells

 

Casting Spells, by Barbara Bretton

Summary:  Chloe Hobbs runs a knitting shop in the bucolic Vermont town of Sugar Maple, a shop where "your yarn never tangles, you always get gauge, and the knitter sitting next to you comes out only after dark."  That's right, Sugar Maple is a secret haven for witches, faeries, vampires, and werewolves.  Chloe holds their entire future in her hands with the need to continue her family line, but a girl can still dream to meet Mr. Right... right?  But what happens when Mr. Right come to Sugar Maple in the form of an ordinary, human cop who's investigating Sugar Maple's first murder in hundreds of years? 

I don't know where I first saw this recommended, probably Interweave Knits or something like that,but hey, they got my three top topics: knitting, magic, and romance.  So it's been sitting on my To Read list for a while now, and I finally got around to it today.  (Don't worry, the romance is not smutty, bodice-buster romance novel quality, but they do do the nasty.)

Overall, it was enjoyable.  I churned through it in one sitting, so that says something for the "immersion" factor.  I found it a bit tricky in the start because Bretton uses first-person narrative (which is never my favorite to begin with) ... but with both her heroine and hero, seriously?!  It was a little rough for me getting used to the switching perspectives, but that wasn't a long-term concern.  I was able to get used to it eventually.  The plot moved along well, but I found myself at the end getting antsy wanting to find out the "will he stay or will he leave her" question that was hanging over the couple since they met.  But it was a cute and happy bit of story.

What was highly enjoyable for the knitter in me was all the references.  Bretton knits herself (Romancing the Yarn) and she used Wendy D. Johnson (Wendy Knits) and Dawn Brocco (DB Knitwear Designs) to help her out even more.  All the big yarn names are dropped in the book: Debby Bliss's Cashmerino, Cascade 220, Koigu, Lopi, Rowan, etc.  And the tone is great.  My favorite part was when Luke (the cop) first enters the shop:

I stepped deeper into the store, past a polished maple worktable piled high with pointed sticks and scissors and things that would never make it past airport security... (blah blah blah, describing the shop) I noticed a ball of something blue and fluffy and picked it up.  I squeezed it and the price tag jumped out, and I quickly put it back down again.  For one ball of yarn? This was worse than crack.  Get addicted to this stuff and you would be living in your minivan.

Sigh. So true, so true.  :)

(Followed in sequel by Laced with Magic that apparently continues Chloe's misadventures in love and magic)