Rating: 4 Stars

Publisher: Jacki James, Lori Ames

Genre: Gay Paranormal Romance

Tags: Contemporary, Cozy Mystery, Fated Mates, Paranormal, Romance, Series, Small Town

Length: 251 Pages

Reviewer: Cindi

Purchase At: Amazon

Blurb –

Magic, murder, and a whole lot of coffee—welcome to Ravenstone!

Declan Hawthorne is just your average caffeine-addicted guy—until a visit to his grandfather reveals: magic is real, witches exist, and apparently, Declan’s one of them.

Now he’s getting to know Ravenstone, a supernatural small town where the coffee is strong, the monsters are quirky, and someone just murdered a vampire at the first annual Magic Festival.

His ally? Gideon Blackwood—a gorgeous wolf shifter who can’t shift but still manages to growl in all the right ways. He knows he can’t be Alpha, but that doesn’t stop him from protecting everyone else… including one reckless new witch who doesn’t know when to quit.

Between magical cookies and cakes, a bunch of meddling misfit monsters, and a lot of spilled coffee, Declan and Gideon have their hands full. But if they want to catch a killer—and maybe fall a little in love—they’ll have to trust their instincts and maybe their magic.

Because in Ravenstone, coffee solves most problems. The rest? Magic and a hot wolf usually do the trick.

Tags: MM paranormal mystery romance, cozy mystery vibes with a bit of heat, an alpha without a wolf, a guy who’s just discovered he’s a witch, some magical cakes and cookies, supernatural small town creatures, low angst, lots and lots of coffee, a misfit monster support group with a heartbroken mermaid, a murder-board-creating shadow imp, a matronly spider lady, a grumpy demon, an extroverted sprite, a shy bigfoot, and Declan’s hippie grandfather.

Review –

“Welcome to Ravenstone, Declan. Where magic is pretty much everywhere.”

Declan dumps his cheating boyfriend and travels to the small town of Ravenstone where his grandfather Elwood lives. Ravenstone isn’t like most small towns. Unbeknownst to Declan, it’s full of magical beings. There are witches, vampires – one is even vegan – a sad mermaid, a bigfoot shifter, a spider lady, and various others. Declan himself has magic, but he doesn’t know it yet. Then there’s Gideon, a wolf shifter who can’t shift. His wolf is there, but the one and only time he attempted to bring him forward, it didn’t go well. Gideon is the unofficial leader of the town, but he refuses to be Alpha. He doesn’t believe he can have the title if he can’t shift. Declan and Gideon immediately click and start spending a lot of time together.

The kiss was everything a kiss should be. I hadn’t realized how inadequate every other kiss in my life had been until this moment.

~~~

Elwood took one look at me and barked out a laugh. “You look like you were mauled by a wolf.”

Elwood, a powerful witch, owns The Mystic Menagerie that sells crystals and other similar items. A not-so-friendly resident of the town has purchased the business next door, and there’s beating and banging all hours of the day and night as construction workers do their thing. Items are constantly getting knocked off shelves at Elwood’s place and getting broken. It’s especially annoying when meetings are held in the back of Elwood’s shop, and the banging keeps happening. The shop is the town’s meeting place, including the weekly (or more, if needed) meetings of The Misfits Monsters’ Support Group. This group makes up of all types of beings who need extra support on occasion, including Gideon and others.

The town’s bread and butter, so to speak, are festivals. They’re right in the middle of preparing for one when someone gets murdered. Declan, the newest resident in town, takes it upon himself to try to find the killer. Gideon is right there with him, and not just because there’s a killer on the loose. 😉

Everybody in town is a suspect, including Elwood, though nobody actually believes he’s a bad guy.

I’m going to go ahead and say it… I figured out who the killer was early on. While I won’t say it’s in your face, it is a little obvious.

The more they investigate, the closer Declan and Gideon get. Everything happens lightning fast; as in, a couple of days after Declan arrives in town fast. Honestly, I think most of it happened the day Declan arrived. It took me a minute to start feeling the two men together. I just didn’t see any type of chemistry at first. That did change as the story played out, thankfully, and I ended up liking them together.

When they’re finally convinced they know who the killer is, there’s another murder that turns everything on its head. This one, I didn’t see coming.

I love the town of misfits – their words, not mine – and the classic small town where everybody knows everybody. I love how it’s described as a cozy mystery because I just commented on Kazza’s recent ‘cozy mystery’ review. I’d say it’s a weird coincidence – cozy mysteries aren’t something that has come up in random conversations before – but it’s not. That’s just us. 🙂 So here I am reading one after talking to her about hers. I didn’t seek one out, by the way. I got a notification that Jacki James had a new book out, and here I am.

This is a romance, or should I say the beginning of one. I’m not usually a fan of series that have the same couple carrying over from one book to another. I want different couples in each book but maybe in the same setting as the others. I didn’t know Declan and Gideon would be continuing in the second book until I got to the end. Honestly, I’m glad because I kept waiting for something important to happen that didn’t. No doubt it will at some point. The next book is Hexes and Hops. I’m curious to know how many books will be in the series. I’m all about Gideon and Declan having more books, but I’m usually over the same couple after 3 or 4.

This is a good story with a great cast of ‘misfit’ characters. I loved most of them, though the spider lady totally creeped me out.

I look forward to the next one. Jacki James is one of my few auto-buy authors. I think this is my first by Lori Ames.