~*~Savory Selections~*~

With a dash of magic and a heaping helping of foodie goodness.

Genre: Paranormal Mystery

Heat Level: Mild - No sex so far

Yet again, Bailey Cates catches my attention with her adorable book covers. Honestly, I love what the cover artist did here. I only wish that instead of showing Honeybee, her aunt's cat who never comes to the bakery, they would have used Mungo, our heroine, Katie Lightfoot's trusty Cairn terrier familiar who plays a much bigger role in the books. Other than that, great job as always on the cover.

What's inside, is even better!

The pacing of Bewitched, Bothered and Biscotti is definitely faster but I think that's always the case with the second book in a series.

We open up in beautiful Wright Square in Savannah, GA as Katie and one of her two love interest, Declan the Firefighter, are on a romantic picnic which is interrupted by the discovery of a dead body. Don't you just hate when that happens?

Katie is a training hereditary Hedge Witch - meaning she does a lot of herbs and gardening to produce magic - and owns a local bakery with her witchy Aunt Lucy and Retired Firefighter Uncle.

This book takes place just a few months after Brownies and Broomsticks and Katie finds herself wrapped up in yet another murder investigation. But not all is as it seems. What might seem like a heart attack turns out to be murder by magic.

Someone's out to release an ancient evil and Katie and her Magical Book Club coven must band together and figure out what is going on before its too late.

I absolutely love how Cates captures the rich culture of Savannah. Its such a beautiful town. If you haven't been, GO. Don't think, just GO. Its wonderful. Take tons of ghost tours.

There is no doubt in every page you read that Savannah is the town Katie lives in and I love that. So many authors just sort of put up a generic backdrop and give it a name but not Cates.

On top of this, as a practicing witch myself, I have to say that Cates knows what she's talking about. She matches up herbs and how a hedge witch would think while cooking or really doing anything in her life.  There are so many aspects of magic and so many authors throw it to the wind to get done what they need done. That's perfectly fine because its their world but its always refreshing to see someone who seems to know what they're talking about.

This is also a great book and series for Foodies! Cates has a great way of capturing you with Katie's unique twists in her bakery. Many of these recipes I'd love to try for myself.

I would have to say if I have one complaint about the book on a whole its what Mungo, Katie's dog, eats. Once she mentions he loved raisins and another time she talked about eating onions. He also seems to eat a lot of sugar.

Every time that was mentioned, it really pulled me out of the story.  Raisins and onions are actually highly toxic to dogs and too much sugar, just like with humans, isn't good either.

That being said, I did notice that on her blog, The Lightfoot Chronicles, Cates does acknowledge this in the post Forbidden Fruit -- At least for Dogs. The blog is written from Katie's pov so be sure to check it out.

As I said, I really loved this book even more than the first. Can't wait to sink my teeth into Charms and Chocolate Chips, book three of the Magical Bakery Series already available.  Especially because of a couple of twists at the end!

This tasty tidbit was served up to you by Bryonna Nobles.