PRAISE FOR NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR JULIET BLACKWELL AND THE WITCHCRAFT MYSTERIES
“A smashingly fabulous tale.”
—New York Times bestselling author Victoria Laurie
“It’s a fun story, with romance possibilities with a couple of hunky men, terrific vintage clothing, and the enchanting Oscar. But there is so much more to this book. It has serious depth.”
—The Herald News (MA)
“Blackwell has another winner . . . a great entry in a really great series.”
—RT Book Reviews
“I believe this is the best of this series I’ve read. . . . Juliet Blackwell is a master . . . but truly, reading the entire series is a pleasure.”
—Fresh Fiction
“[Blackwell] continues to blend magic, mystery, and romance in this sixth novel that shines with good humor and a great plot.”
—Kings River Life Magazine
“This series gets better and better with each book. . . . A good mystery that quickly became a page-turner.”
—Dru’s Book Musings
“An enticing, engrossing read, a mystery that’s hard to put down, and wickedly fun.”
—MyShelf.com
“Sparkles with Blackwell’s outstanding storytelling skills.”
—Lesa’s Book Critiques
“Funny and thoughtful . . . an easy read with an enjoyable heroine and a touch of witchy intuition.”
—The Mystery Reader
“A wonderful paranormal amateur sleuth tale. . . . Fans will enjoy Lily’s magical mystery tour of San Francisco.”
—Genre Go Round Reviews
“An excellent blend of mystery, paranormal, and light humor.”
—The Romance Readers Connection
Also by Juliet Blackwell
The Paris Key
Letters from Paris
THE WITCHCRAFT MYSTERIES
Secondhand Spirits
A Cast-off Coven
Hexes and Hemlines
In a Witch’s Wardrobe
Tarnished and Torn
A Vision in Velvet
Spellcasting in Silk
A Toxic Trousseau
THE HAUNTED HOME RENOVATION MYSTERIES
If Walls Could Talk
Dead Bolt
Murder on the House
Home for the Haunting
Keeper of the Castle
Give Up the Ghost
A Ghostly Light
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME
Published by Berkley
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
Copyright © 2018 by Julie Goodson-Lawes
Excerpt from A Ghostly Light copyright © 2017 by Julie Goodson-Lawes
Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
BERKLEY is a registered trademark and BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the B colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Ebook ISBN: 9780399584190
First Edition: April 2018
Cover art © Victor Rivas
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_2
For Hanna Toda
A candle in the darkness
Shine!
Contents
Praise for Juliet Blackwell
Also by Juliet Blackwell
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Excerpt from A GHOSTLY LIGHT
Chapter 1
The week had started out with such promise. But now my fiancé was in the slammer, my grandmother’s coven had gone missing, my supposed witch’s familiar was acting loopy, my powers appeared to have dissipated, and the future of my beloved adopted city of San Francisco was hanging in the balance. Oh, and a man had been murdered.
Maybe I should start at the beginning.
Not long ago I was a simple vintage-clothing-store owner feeling as if she needed to hire an event planner. My own rapidly approaching wedding was on my mind, plus I’d been working with my friend Bronwyn’s Welcome coven to plan a mother-daughter matching-outfit brunch, called the Magical Match, as a fund-raiser for the Haight Street women’s shelter. It was coming up this very Sunday, and yet it had taken us an hour to agree upon the newly designed flyers.
At long last, we were moving on to item number two on the day’s agenda.
We sat in a circle, breakfasting on homemade muffins and sipping strong cappuccinos and fragrant jasmine tea. Surrounding us was a cascade of crinolines and prom dresses, Jackie O hats and patent leather pumps—all part and parcel of the inventory of Aunt Cora’s Closet, my shop in San Francisco’s famed Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. Oscar, my miniature Vietnamese potbellied pig—and ersatz witch’s familiar—snored faintly on his purple silk pillow on the floor.
“My issue is, it feels a bit exclusive to restrict the party to mothers and daughters,” Bronwyn mused. “What about fathers and sons?”
“True! After all, gender is fluid,” said a coven member formerly known as Amy. Recently Amy had changed her name to Wind Spirit, but I kept forgetting to call her that.
“Or chosen families, for that matter?” interjected Starr, and several women nodded and mmm-hmmed in agreement.
“But I thought everyone was supposed to wear matching outfits,” said Wendy, getting back to the point. “How’s that going to work?”
A spirited discussion among the members of the Welcome coven followed. This was the Bay Area, after all, and a lot of us who’d landed here were searching for a sense of family and community that reached beyond the lines of blood and tradition. Besides, the women of the Welcome coven were an inclusive bunch and didn’t want to leave anyone out.
All of which made it hard to adhere to a talking point.
Bronwyn Theadora Peters was a voluptuous fiftysomething Wiccan who favored gauzy purple tunics and chunky natural stone jewelry. Today her frizzy brown hair was crowned with a garland of now-wilting daisies and cornflowers. She ran an herb stand in one corner of Aunt Cora’s Closet but was much more than a coworker to me—truly she was one of my best friends. Bronwyn was one of the first people I’d met when I arrived in San Francisco, and she had welcomed me with a warm bear hug that blasted through my carefully cultivated reserve. Ever since then, Bronwyn had stuck with me through thick and thin, magical and mundane. I adored her, appreciated her, and respected her.
And sometimes
