Books and Brews by Susan Harper

2.5 Stars

When Monica and Mona's grandmother decides to retire she leaves them her bookshop to run.  This, as the name suggests, is not ordinary bookshop though - one half is in the mundane, human world and one half in the magical world.  Now, Monica and Mona are twins but only Mona got the magic, Monica is more of a squibb in that department so it is fairly clear how things are divvied up.  Apparently the grandmother could produce magical clones of herself so she didn't need help running the stores - not sure how that worked in the Human World to be honest.

At first it's quite fun reading about Monica trying to get to grips with mortal technology and hopelessly trying to resist using the few spells she can make work.  Throw in a shop cat that is a witch being punished by having to "do time" as a familiar and with a nice line in caustic put downs.  The world of the Magical Bookshop seems really intriguing but we only get brief glimpses of it when Monica goes to visit Mona.  All fairly entertaining, even if the same ground gets covered two or three times through this slim volume.

The murder mystery part is fairly straightforward, man found drowned which could be an accident or foul play.  Monica inserts herself in to the investigation because she is crushing on the Police Officer investigating.  Monica tries using her magic herself - cue disastrous event.  The truth comes out of what happened and Monica seems to be in with a chance with her crush and has made some Human friends in to the bargain.

Overall this is a good concept but executed fairly poorly; with a predictable plot and strangely simplistic vocabulary.  There is little in the way of character development or scene setting and it all tends to move along in a "she did this, then this happened, so she did this" way.  However, there is something charming about the simplicity so it isn't an out and out flop.