In the Company of Witches (Evenfall Witches B&B Mystery, #1)

In the Company of WitchesIn the Company of Witches
by Auralee Wallace
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780593335840
Series: Evenfall Witches B&B #1
Publication Date: October 19, 2021
Pages: 336
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Paranormal
Publisher: Berkley

When a guest dies in the B&B she helps her aunts run, a young witch must rely on some good old-fashioned investigating to clear her aunt’s name in this magical and charming new cozy mystery.

For four hundred years, the Warren witches have used their magic to quietly help the citizens of the sleepy New England town of Evenfall thrive. There’s never been a problem they couldn’t handle. But then Constance Graves–a local known for being argumentative and demanding–dies while staying at the bed and breakfast Brynn Warren maintains with her aunts. At first, it seems like an accident…but it soon becomes clear that there’s something more sinister at work, and Aunt Nora is shaping up to be the prime suspect.

There’s nothing Brynn wants more than to prove Nora’s innocence, and it hurts her to know that even two years ago that might have been easier. Brynn, after all, is a witch of the dead–a witch who can commune with ghosts. Ghosts never remember much about their deaths, but Constance might remember something about her life that would help crack the case. But Brynn hasn’t used her powers since her husband died, and isn’t even sure she still can. Brynn will just have to hope that her aunts’ magic and her own investigative skills will lead her to answers–and maybe back to the gift she once thought herself ready to give up forever.


Pure paranormal cozy, but better than the average cozy output of the last decade.  Zero romance, at least in this first book, without even so much as a prospect on the horizon.  There’s a bit of heaviness here, as the MC is struggling to accept the death of her husband, and the author writes her grief in an almost palpable way at times.

The characters are written well, although the cat and the crow (whose name is Dog) steal the show whenever they’re on the page.  At the point where any one character seems too 2 dimensional, the author offers up a peek into another layer that balances them out realistically, so that no one is too nice, or too evil.

The mystery plotting was skilfully done and the murderer was unexpected.

I’m definitely requesting the second book from my library, and if it continues in this vein, I’ll have a new cozy mystery to enjoy for the first time in years.

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