Book 91, 2024
Harvest and Haunt ( by Eva Belle
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Last night I finished Harvest and Haunt, which is the first book in Eva Belle's "Autumn cozy paranormal" mystery series. The main character is Nova Powers, who owns an antique shop, enjoys coffee and sweets, and conducts paranormal investigations with the MPS team.
As October begins, the days and nights grow cooler, Nova begins wearing her own hand knitted sweaters, and paranormal activity seems to ramp up around the town of Cape Mystic. There's a murder or two to investigate, along with a haunted lighthouse and a haunted school. When several people in town find witch bottles on their property, Nova isn't sure if it's a prank or a warning. She may soon find out, however, when a witch bottle appears on her own doorstep.
The story was okay, but it was all over the place. There was absolutely no continuity. It read like three short novellas instead of one cohesive book. Worst of all, it ended on a cliffhanger. Second worst of all is that the cover depicted here is not the beautiful cover of the ebook I downloaded onto my Kindle. I don't know why that version wasn't available on GoodReads, but I'm salty about it. Characterizations were fair to middling. I liked that Nova is a mature woman, although we have no idea if she's divorced, widowed, or has never been married. No mention was made of any children. Editing needed work. A lot of work. This sentence in particular stood out: "Thank you," Ann murdered as she poured the coffee. WTF, Ann? LOL! I'm 99% sure the author meant murmured, which should have been caught in editing. Another thing that irritated me was the author's overuse of Nova's name. When the woman is by herself, we don't need to keep reading that Nova did this then Nova did that. It would have been smoother to read that Nova did this then she did that. Also, any time her cat was mentioned, it was "her cat Clove". Once the cat has been introduced by name, the fact that she's a cat shouldn't be mentioned over and over. Narrative was very choppy and lacked any smooth transitions.
Favorite line: It seemed that hate and vengeance went hand-in-hand.
This book was perfect for the season and featured lovely descriptions that really set the mood. It would have benefitted greatly with competent editing. I wish I could give it 2.5 stars, but since I can't it's getting 2. I can't condone awarding this even an average score.