This is a ho-hum little cozy for us mystery fans who enjoy beachy tourist-trap settings and a teeny tiny dash of mystical magic added to the mix. I’ll start with the good: The Bay Island setting lured me in, making me think of my vacations in Port-A, where I love to spend my days at the tourist shops and licking ice cream cones on the boardwalk. I also really loved the gay male BFF who provided some comic relief here and there with his sass and charm.

Now onto the bad: The main character is a cardboard cutout of all the other amateur sleuths in traditional cozies. She’s just this super nice “Mary Sue” character who inevitably throws herself into the killer’s trap like a suicidal idiot. She also has the requisite detective boyfriend who constantly nags her about staying out of the murder investigation…blah, blah, blaaaaahhhhh. And OMG!!! What was this girl thinking in the opening chapter when she went through with her big psychic reading event while the a/c was on the fritz??? I live in Texas, so the very thought of this gives me the hives. And while her handyman is temporarily incarcerated, why oh why must she wait to fix her a/c out of respect for him?! Girl, I think he would understand since you’re trying t run a business during a heat wave.

I don’t know. Maybe somewhere deep in her subconscious, she wants to drive customers away. If so, that’s the way to do it! And speaking of customer service, I’m not understanding why she provides psychic readings to her costumers while simultaneously running the entire shop. I don’t know much about psychics, but don’t they need full concentration to look into people’s auras and stuff? If I was paying good money for a reading, I would be a little perturbed if the psychic interrupted a message from a dead loved one to greet a new customer.

I’m sad to say that the bad outweighs the good in this series, so I will just mosey along to something a little less cliched and a lot less crazy-making.