First line: If I hadn’t asked my New York cronies to mention my grand opening in their national fashion magazines, I might be able to breathe as if I weren’t wearing Scarlett O’Hara’s corset.
From the back cover: With all the stress of opening her new vintage clothing store (housed in the renovated old town morgue), Madeira Cutler feels like a bag of bones – until she discovers the real deal, unearthed by a snooping intruder, in one of the old body drawers. And the bones are as vintage as Maddie’s stock (Classic Mod – so 60s!), or so says Maddie’s sexy resident ghost, Dante Underhill.
Could the break-in have something to do with the local playhouse and its curator going down in flames? Somehow Maddie will have to juggle dressing the store, party planning, and crime solving all at once. Add to the brew the local witch’s costume ball, which is being held at her store, and Madeira is wishing she knew how to ride a broom right out of there…
My thoughts: This is the second in Annette Blair’s Vintage Magic Mystery series and I loved it. It is a very fun cozy mystery series that marries vintage clothing, cats, witchcraft and humor.
Maddie Cutler is close to opening the dream of her life, a vintage clothing store in her hometown. She has just had the old funeral home she purchased renovated and is excited about her grand opening. But when a fire leads to the discovery of a body in the nearby playhouse, and a set of human bones is discovered in her own shop, Maddie and her friend Eva can’t help but be drawn into the mystery. As she starts looking into things, she realizes that the killer is still alive, however, and determined that Maddie doesn’t get a clue about what happened. With the help of her psychic abilities and resident ghost, Dante, she follows the threads, weaves the clues together, and gets to the heart of the crime.
I really enjoy this series, even though I am not really a fan of the paranormal. I think what really draws me in is the vintage clothing and how certain pieces seem to come to life when Maddie touches them. My only complaint with the story is that we don’t actually get to see any of these amazing pieces – I would love if there were some snapshots or even hand drawings of some of the pieces that are mentioned in the book. Of course, I will definitely be reading the rest of this series, pictures or not!
(I purchased this book.)
