Review: A Good Story Pretty-Well Told
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 11, 2014
A witch in a world where humans (mortals) never lived without magic all around them. No need to hide the "realities" of werewolves, gargoyles, or magical crimes, and witches have clans--not covens.If Harry Dresden, of Jim Butcher's 'Dresden Files' series, had a female cousin in an alternate universe, Michelle Oaks might be her--in a literary sense. 'Witch For Hire' is lighter and so is the main character and her background. When I read a review that mentioned Dresden I was cynical, however, this series has a similar nature. Like candy popcorn differs from caramel popcorn. (That is not meant to be offensive, I love popcorn!)The story is told from the perspective of the characters who's names begin each chapter (chapter two threw me for a second), and because Michelle works for several police departments handling magical mischief and crimes, new cases keep the story moving along.There are a few word mistakes, such as being in "moral danger" instead of mortal, etc., but more often it is something like the word "into" not being in the editor's spell-check. I have my own quirks so I don't worry about the little things, but many people do.I gave the book four stars because among other things I was impressed with the variety and inventiveness of the cases our heroine dealt with, and I felt some tension wondering whether my evaluations of people would turn out to be correct. I hope that future books go into more details about the experiences of the characters rather than brief descriptions of their actions, and I would like to 'see' what they see (the garden, more to go on than snap-shots of crime scenes...).Note: This book doesn't have overtly offensive language or sexual content, but there is some gruesome imagery and violence. (As much as I like many of 'The Dresden Files' series books, some of the books have the first two forms of content so I don't recommend them as a set. For my own reasons, most types of fantasy violence don't offend me.)