Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Guest Post: Jeanne and Treadmill Books: The Witch’s Familiar Series by Delia James

Jeanne of the Bookblog of the Bristol Library is back today with her latest review…

Treadmill Books:  The Witch’s Familiar Series by Delia James

Annabelle Blessington Britton, an artist just coming off a bad relationship, decides to take up her friend Martine’s invitation to visit her in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where Martine is a chef. Annabelle quickly discovers that her family has a past in Portsmouth that she knew nothing about, that a strange grey cat seems to be following her, and that she herself is a witch.  On top of that, she finds that the cat’s former owner has died in an apparent accident which may actually turn out to have been murder.

Mysteries with cats and a touch of the supernatural are a bit more common than one might think at first; I can think of at least four other series that fit that description right off the bat. Five, if the cats aren’t particularly active characters.  Anyway, the grey cat in question is Alastair who was the familiar of the late Dorothy and has now adopted Annabelle as his witch.  There’s quite a bit of convincing to be done, but by the book’s end Annabelle has joined a coven and is starting to learn the magical ropes. 

Each book explores a bit more of the lore surrounding the Craft, all during the course of investigating a murder which has some supernatural overtones.  Fortunately, one member of the coven is a police officer, albeit a junior officer who has to keep her activities out of the spotlight; still, it gives Annabelle some access to the police process.  There’s the standard police officer who takes a dim view of Annabelle meddling, one or two possible love interests (very chaste so far), a couple of good friends, and many mentions of good cooking.  I consider it a cozy, but since there is no hard and fast definition of a cozy, some might disagree.

Annabelle is a likeable enough character, though she leans toward the dramatic and her thought processes are a bit scattered.  She can be flippant is often self-deprecating, giving the books some non-magical levity.  She depends a lot on her “Vibe” to assess a person or situation, so readers get character views filtered through Annabelle’s perceptions. Also, she tends not to ask any questions that might clear up a lot of things too quickly but that can make the plot drag a bit.

As for the supporting characters, they could be better developed. We’re told about them, but not particularly shown; they tend to run to type (for example, no nonsense police officer who is former military and has PTSD; brusque police officer who doesn’t like “nosy parkers” meddling in his cases;  earth mother with a past; incredibly patient understanding boyfriend; straight-laced and patrician coven leader, etc.)  Alastair the familiar is a more vivid presence than most of the human characters and he makes up for a lot.  Also, Julia the coven leader has two dachshunds who are more expressive than she is. 

The plots are serviceable and can be somewhat topical.  I particularly liked the story line in Familiar Motives which involves a famous feline spokescat a la Grumpy Cat who goes missing when her veterinarian is murdered. I won’t go into further details for fear of spoilers but I liked the way the author handled the scenario.

Verdict:  This is an okay treadmill series. It’s enjoyable but early chapters are often rather slow while Annabelle describes and dithers, giving new readers background information.  The books generally do pick up momentum about half-way. In the meantime, I count on Alastair to keep me entertained along with learning a little about how magic is viewed in Annabelle’s world. (Except for some phrases and a blessing, there aren’t much in the way of specifics about magic unlike, say, Juliet Blackwell’s Witchcraft Mystery series.  Part of this is because Annabelle is new and doesn’t ask questions, as noted above.)

There are three books in the series so far:

1.       A Familiar Tail
2.       By Familiar Means
3.       Familiar Motives 

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