Midlife Curses

Witching Hour, Book 1

By: Christine Zane Thomas

Narrated by: Cris Dukehart

Constance Campbell has made a few questionable decisions in the run-up to her 40th birthday. So in a way, moving 2,000 miles away from everything she's ever known makes perfect sense.

Creel Creek, Virginia, is the last place either of her ex-husbands would ever think to look for her. What better place to hide from her humiliations than a town too small to warrant a mention on a map?

Laid off, and recently divorced from husband number two, this former workaholic moves in with her estranged - and very strange - grandmother. A grandmother who informs Constance that she comes from a long line of powerful witches. And on the day she hits the big 4-0, she'll come into her powers.

It turns out that she's not the only paranormal person in town. Under the sleepy surface, the small town is teeming with supernatural beings.

When Constance finds the town's resident vampire dead, things go from surreal to scary. The local sheriff is convinced that a killer is lurking in the shadows, hunting anyone with supernatural abilities...including witches like her.

He's not wrong.

Can Constance learn enough magic to save herself and Creel Creek from this unknown foe?

©2020 Christine Zane Thomas (P)2020 Tantor

Overall interesting

This is an interesting idea for a story, and I liked it, but I didn't love it. The heroine is pretty judgemental of pretty much everyone. It's not cool or badass. Just bad tempered. I didn't feel connected to any of the characters really, but I liked the magic and mystery enough to give it a chance in book 2.

Surprising good!

I didn’t expect much other than another usual cozy. After awhile they seem can seem predictable, and I end up picking out different titles when returning to audible. This began with a quick trip into witch life and I was wishing for MORE about this person and her family….still would be a great cross country story…but I kept listening…I was doing handwork and found myself excited to get back to the story. I happened to start this one at a busy time in this month and kept having to leave it paused. I finally just said nope, I wanted to hear the rest of the story.

There wasn’t much, however I’d have loved if the author hadn’t stuck the “describe a cute man” paragraphs into a couple chapters, this was truly a tiny bit of the whole book.

Reading the another review, I understand the feelings and yes this could be a YA book but it’s character and ‘story driven. YA books are at their best when a new world opens up…supernatural or inner workings of some business or govt offices or just an incredible look-sea through a part of this planet or country, perhaps incredible fully stocked witches homes or apothecary shops….

This doesn’t do that and the characters are well past their teens. So to me it’s not YA…it’s a story well told and interesting, and if you let yourself, you’ll enjoy it to the end.
There were about five one sentence slips into a monotone for about 2 seconds, but overall this was well read. I really like when the reader and the main character sync. This reader is very believable and allows immersion into the story without hiccups.

Loved it but....

Again audible wise up! People very seldom will use a credit on short books! I really liked this book but I won't use a credit on books under 8 hours. If you want to sell these books combine at least 2 so it's worth getting, a lot more will sell. I got this one in the plus catalog and sometimes 2 to 5 books of a series is available in the plus section, then I will buy the last 2 because i've already gotten so many hours into it already. Putting the first one for free is smart then we get an idea if we want to keep listening. Then combine the rest for longer listening and people will buy them. I would love to finish this series but not at 12.00 ( one credit) for 5 hours.

JUST LOVED IT, ORIGINAL AND CLEAN

Recommended entertaining mid life events that will be enjoyed by witchy paramormal readers. ( While l say clean there is an implied with no details scene in a closet .)
Loved all the characters in this town and can't wait to find out Brad's adventure and learn about the owl's future involvement. Definately want more of this series.

unexpected fun and laughter.

I thought the story was interesting twist and it was. I enjoyed the characters and laughed a few times at some great one liners.
After I was done I went looking for the next. oops. it was just released. no matter I will wait for the next and in the mean time I will listen to the author's other books.

So so

It was clean (which is refreshing) and had some interesting story lines. The characters were minimally developed. It was just a bit sophomoric, but I wasn’t listening to it to increase my grey matter.

Not bad

The beginning was a downer but the book got better. A quick read, intriguing premise and fun characters.

It had potential

But failed to live up to it. It seems like the author spent more time trying to cram the book full of pop culture references than she did working on story and character development. Also, makes excessive references to a particular book franchise, but also gets the name of one of the books wrong. I liked the idea of it, and the characters, but it could have been a lot more than it is. I finished it but, based on this book, I'm not compelled to read anything further from this author.

It was just ok

I liked the characters, but not enough to care what may happen next. Maybe more character development and world development would have improved the storyline. I see this (something is lacking) to be the trend for me concerning most books and series described as "cozy".

Good Story

I enjoyed the story and the narrator. The plot was interesting and just when I thought I had it figured out I was surprised yet again. Looking forward to the next book in the series.