Brief Update and Review of Witch Way to Murder

Cyn2008-02-182022-04-17

I’ve been doing so much reading because I’ve been sick and unable to do much else. We did get the girl to her doctor, so we know there’s no strep around here. The doctor wouldn’t rule out mono, but wouldn’t test for it either. (I don’t really like this woman, and we usually try to go when the nicer physician is there.) She said that since they don’t do anything but treat the symptoms if it is mono, and the contagion period would have been 60–90 days ago, she doesn’t see any reason to run a test.

Yes, you aren’t “supposed” to be able to get mono more than once, but I’ve had it several times, and it seems that Katie has it again, too. That isn’t so unusual with people who have chronic fatigue syndrome/fibromyalgia.

I wanted something light to read that didn’t suck, and I ran across the mention of Shirley Damsgaard’s Ophelia and Abby mysteries somehow recently, so I got them from the library. I just finished the first, Witch Way to Murder, and I’m tickled to have found new series of “cozy” mysteries that I like.

Combine two generations of witches, a librarian (who does needlework!), a personable cat and dog (and no, they don’t talk, thankfully), and a sexy sidekick in a small town where everybody thinks they know everybody else’s business and you have a very nice little setting. I won’t tell you much about the plot of the first book, but it is fairly good. I’ll be reading the other four books in the series now since they’re on my shelf.

Cyn

Cyn is Katie's mom, Esther's Mémé, and a Support Engineer. She lives in the Atlanta area with her life partner, Rick, and their critters. She knits, does counted-thread needlework, reads, makes music, plays TTRPGs, and spends too much time online.

Website http://technomom.com/

Posts created 4253

7 thoughts on “Brief Update and Review of Witch Way to Murder”

Chris says:

2008-02-19 at 10:38 am

That isnâ€™t so unusual with people have chronic fatigue syndrome/fibromyalgia.
Interesting, I have had mono three? four? times since my first diagnosis back in 91-ish and I was also diagnosed with CFS around 2004-ish.

I wonder if it’s related…
SilverSliver says:

2008-02-19 at 3:50 pm

Doesn’t it make sense to diagnose the problem so you know you’re treating the right symptoms rather than ignoring something more serious? Especially considering a mono spot costs $10 and 5 minutes? I can see why you dislike that doctor.
cyn says:

2008-02-19 at 4:01 pm

Yep — one of the theories about the causes of CFS/ME has to do with mono. And when Katie and Alice both had mono back in, um, 2003? 2004? (can’t remember which right now — bad pain/fog day), an infectious disease specialist told Alice that if you don’t recover from mono in a certain amount of time, they change the diagnosis to CFS.
cyn says:

2008-02-19 at 5:42 pm

Oh, knowing exactly what’s wrong would make WAY too much sense!
I really need to get their office staff to give us the good doc’s schedule, then check to be sure she’s really in before we bother.
HopeEvey says:

2008-02-19 at 11:19 pm

BooHiss at the moron doctor!
The book sounds like fun — I was just thinking that I could use a good cozy. I’ll have to see if my library has these :)
lceel says:

2008-02-20 at 2:34 pm

I see a woman doctor. She is smart, funny, warm, kind and efficient. And she’s a good doctor, too. I quit seeing the male doctor I had been seeing for years for the same reasons that your female doctor is probably not the doctor you should be seeing.
amqueue says:

2008-02-25 at 12:32 am

For more relatively short books with interesting plotlines and characters but not too much to keep track of, I’d recommend Patricia Briggs “Mercedes Thompson” series. Not sure if that’s the name of it as a series, but there are three tightly connected ones: Moon Called, Blood Bound, and Iron Kissed. The Husband tells me that he isn’t sure there are going to be any others, because (as he read on the author’s website) one of the requirements from the publisher was that “the lead character have an interesting lovelife”. Since the lead characters’s lovelife is pretty much resolved by the end of the third book, that *seems* to leave it as ‘finished’. I have, however, heard a rumor that she’s using the same ‘world’ in a new book involving a side character from one of the books and task they were sent off to take care of.
That said, I’m still enjoying LKH enough to buy her stuff; I’m not so much about mysteries for the mental puzzle as I am about character and description. The elfy ones are amusing me, the vampy ones at least have the main character growing up finally, and something about Laurell’s writing style just pulls me in, even the parts that have me giggling inappropriately.