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Cassie
Scot: Paranormal Detective
By
Christine Amsden
Publisher: Twilight
Times Books
Release Date: April 4, 2013
Genre: Contemporary/Paranormal/Mystery
Length: 260 Pages
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Links: Amazon Print Kindle
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Book Description:
Cassie Scot is the ungifted daughter of powerful
sorcerers, born between worlds but belonging to neither. At 21, all she wants
is to find a place for herself, but earning a living as a private investigator
in the shadow of her family’s reputation isn’t easy. When she is pulled into a
paranormal investigation, and tempted by a powerful and handsome sorcerer, she
will have to decide where she truly belongs.
Excerpt from Chapter 5
Belinda’s collection of potions was extensive and many of her customers believed in the power of her brews. They were probably crap, especially those offering up money and wishes, because if she really could brew them, why would she need to sell them? Others, such as those offering weight loss or hair regrowth, might have been legitimate–I had no real way of knowing.
Then my eyes fell on a
tiny vial with the word “MAGIC” on the label. I picked it up and turned it over
to read the details: “Tap into magical energies you never knew were there.
You’ll be able to cast spells and brew potions. Curse your neighbors and find
true love. $15.95”
“Impossible,” I muttered.
Surely, if such a thing could be, my parents would have fed it to me years ago.
“That stuff is crap,”
Evan said.
I jumped. I had almost
forgotten he was there. He stood by a bulletin board, where he had been staring
at pictures of Belinda, her friends, and her family. “Belinda mostly knows how
to brew love potions, and even then she keeps the strongest ones to herself…the
ones that truly ensnare the mind and heart.”
I replaced the vial of
MAGIC, with just a tiny twinge of regret, and moved on to Belinda’s love
potions. She had one full shelf dedicated to love, decorated with pink hearts
and red roses. A lot of these potions were in the form of perfumes, creams,
shampoos, and most especially–chocolates. The bottom third of the shelf was
dedicated to boxes of chocolate candy in different flavors and potencies. While a strong love potion will ensnare the mind and the heart, most of the
weaker love potions are what you might call suggestive magic. They could cause
you to feel affection, adoration, or arousal, but they typically left the
higher brain functions intact.
At random, I picked up a
bottle of perfume from the top shelf and read: “Induces powerful lust. Spray on
your intended and make sure you are the first person they see. Lasts about an
hour.”
The thing you have to
understand about any magic is that there are good ways to use it, and bad ways
to use it. The concept of black magic is a hotly debated topic among sorcerers.
Even death, in self defense, is a shade of gray. As I stood there, reading the
functions of the various love potions, I thought of all the innocent and
harmful ways they could be used. A couple in a committed relationship might
have a lot of fun with a spray of lust. On the other hand, using it on an
unwilling victim…
I shuddered as I replaced
the bottle and accidentally knocked one of the neighboring bottles of perfume
to the ground. It shattered, splashing perfume all over my open-toed sandals.
“Crap.”
“What happened?” Evan
asked, his voice hard and alert. I could hear him moving closer.
“Stop! I don’t want to
see you right now.”
“Which potion was that?”
Evan asked, still in that hard-edged voice of command.
I pointed to the row of
similar bottles on the top shelf. “Lust.”
One of the little bottles
floated away from the shelf, but I did not turn around to see what Evan was
doing with it. Instead, I started looking through my purse for a pack of
tissues to clean the mess off my feet.
“Cassie, I have some bad
news for you.”
“Worse, you mean?”
“This potion doesn’t take
affect until you actually look at someone. Your hour starts then.”
“Crap. I don’t suppose
there’s an antidote?”
“Sure,, but it will take
me about three days to brew, once the moon is full.”
“Okay.” I considered my
options as I wiped the mess off my foot and started gathering the tiny shards
of glass. “Well, I guess I could-” I stopped, I had nothing to put at the end
of that sentence. I kind of hoped Evan would have a suggestion, but to my
surprise, he started laughing at me. “This isn’t funny.”
“Come on, it is a little
funny.”
Maybe it would be funny
in a few days, if I didn’t die of embarrassment first. “I suppose I could call
my boyfriend.” I didn’t want to explain any of this to him, and though I
trusted him, I didn’t really want him to become the object of my uncontrolled
lust for an hour. I just didn’t know what else to do.
“Who are you seeing?”
Evan asked, all traces of amusement gone.
“Braden,” I said.
“Who?”
“Braden Walker. He was a
year ahead of us in school. He was on the football team.”
“Oh. I think I remember
him.” Evan paused for a long moment. “You know you could do better, right?”
“It’s none of your
business.” I had to fight the urge to glare at him when I said that. He barely
knew Braden, so what made him think he could make any judgments? Besides, I
didn’t know why he thought I could do better, when I had done very little
dating in high school. I hadn’t known if my family name scared people off, or
if there was something fundamentally wrong with me, but Braden had at least
restored my confidence that the latter was not true.
“Listen,” Evan said. “I
need to do another spell. It’ll just be a few minutes. We’ll figure something
out after, just don’t look at me until I’m done.”
“I get that.” I sounded
more annoyed at the admonition than I should have, because his quip about
Braden still stung.
Within seconds, I smelled
candles and incense, and heard Evan muttering under his breath. I found a trash
can by a nearby desk, and tossed the damp tissues inside. Then I spotted a
black day planner on top of the desk. It was the sort of thing that ancient
relatives used to buy me for school, but I never used. Belinda seemed to have
liked it, though. Nearly every page through the end of July was covered in
notes and reminders.
Over the weekend, she
wrote, she had rented a cabin in the woods by the lake. She should have been
back, though, because in about half an hour, she had a dinner date at Hodge
Mill with Sheriff Adams. I blinked and re-read the name several times to be
sure I had seen it correctly, but unfortunately, I had. My old boss and friend
had been acting a little strangely that afternoon, but I hadn’t guessed he
might be under the influence of a love spell.
“Finished,” Evan said. I
heard him gathering up his supplies. “This isn’t good. I suspected it this
afternoon, but now I’m sure–there’s no threshold on this home. Which either
means Belinda has permanently moved, or else she’s dead.”
“Do you think she had
something to do with your cousin’s murder?” I asked.
“I don’t know what to
think. I can’t come up with a reason she’d do it, but then again, where is
she?”
“I found her day
planner,” I said, holding it up over my shoulder so Evan could see. “She was
supposed to go to the lake this weekend, and she’s got a date tonight at Hodge
Mill. You’ll never guess who it’s with.”
“Who?”
“The sheriff.”
“Huh.”
“I know it’s a long shot,
but I figure we should go to Hodge Mill and see if she shows up–or if the
sheriff does. After that–”
“Cassie,” Evan
interrupted.
“Yeah?”
“How much do you trust
me?”
“Er-Why?”
“Turn around,” he said.
“Did you figure something
out?” I said, my heart beating a little faster. “Some way to stop the potion?”
“Yes.”
“But you said-” I never
got a chance to finish, because just then, Evan moved into my field of vision
and I turned to stare at him properly.
In all the years I had
known him, I had somehow missed the fact that Evan has the most incredible blue
eyes. They sparkle like diamonds when he laughs, and darken like the sea when
he’s angry. At that moment, I thought I could swim in those eyes. I had never
spent much time looking at his lips before, but I suddenly became aware of just
how kissable they were. I started towards him, my focus set on those beautiful,
kissable lips.
I couldn’t move.
Something was forcing my body absolutely still.
“Sorry about that,” Evan
said, not sounding sorry at all. He swung a satchel over his shoulder and
started out the door. I found myself following behind him, but I wasn’t the one
moving my legs. “Nothing to do but let it run its course. If you want to hate
me in an hour, I’ll understand.”
BIO:
Award-winning
author Christine Amsden has written stories since she was eight, always with a
touch of the strange or unusual. She became a “serious” writer in 2003, after
attending a boot camp with Orson Scott Card. She finished Touch of Fate shortly afterward, then penned The Immortality Virus, which
won two awards. Expect many more titles by this up-and-coming author.
ONLINE
LINKS:
·
Website http://christineamsden.com/wordpress/
·
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/christine.amsden
·
Twitter https://twitter.com/ChristineAmsden
My Review
An interesting mix of paranormal romance and
cozy mystery, Cassie Scot: Paranormal Detective
by Christine
Amsden, is full of likable characters and snappy dialogue. Building a unique world, set in a small town
in southern Missouri, Ms. Amsden’s witches and vampires are out
among the everyday folk, though they do keep a low profile. With plenty of emotional angst and physical
action, Ms.
Amsden’s tale of murder among the magically powerful kept me turning the
pages to discover what was going to happen next.
Born to two of the town’s most powerful sorcerers,
Cassie Scot is almost a magical null.
With little to no magical power, she’s an anomaly in a
magically endowed family. Determined to make a
difference, Cassie opens her own private detective agency to help the
non-magical get justice in town. She never planned on getting involved in a murder investigation pitting the
witches and vampires against each other, while at the same time having to deal with some her own family's emotional drama tied to her lack of magical power.
Hired to serve a subpoena to a powerful witch, Cassie finds a dead body instead. When the young deceased woman is identified
as the cousin of Evan Blackwood, one of the town’s most powerful sorcerers,
Cassie gets drawn into the investigation to handle the magical portion of case –
even though she’s not magically gifted – she knows all of the powerful players
in town.
Sorcerer Evan Blackwood hasn’t seen Cassie Scot in years. Friends when they were in school, their lives have taken different paths. Especially since their father’s are still carry a grudge against each other. Determined to get justice for his cousin, and intrigued by the woman Cassie has become, Evan demands to take part in Cassie’s investigation.
Ms. Amsden does a really good job
developing all of the characters in this story; Cassie is smart, funny and is
somewhat snarky. Evan is handsome,
magically powerful, and emotionally volatile.
They work well together and it’s obvious they’ve been attracted to each
other for since they were teens. They are strong characters whether they are together, or on their own.
The secondary characters consist of Cassie’s family, who provide their own emotional issues and plenty of drama, Cassie’s friends, who are regular ordinary humans, and the people in town. While there are a lot of people in the story, Ms. Amsden does a good job of managing them all.
Will Cassie and Evan discover who’s behind what’s
happened to the dead witches? Will Cassie
and Evan’s attraction lead to an actual romance? You’ll have to read Cassie
Scot: Paranormal Detective to find out. I enjoyed it and I hope this story is
developed into a series.
My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Crowns
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book as a part of a book tour in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Great review. Definitely will have to look this one up.
ReplyDeleteMarika