beckythereader 's review for:

When the Crow's Away by Auralee Wallace

3.5

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When the Crow’s Away is the second book in the Evenfall B&B Witches series. I’d really recommend reading the first book, In the Company of Witches, I adored it. In this series, Brynn and her aunts, Nora and Izzy, run a B&B, and her uncle Gideon occasionally pops up. 

 

The characters in this novel shone. Brynn felt a bit more stable in this novel compared to the first book. It was nice finding out more about Izzy and Nora. I feel like Gideon wasn’t really in the ending of the book much, just spoke about in their minds but not even between Brynn and the aunts (4 ✨). 

 

Wallace is really good at writing a cosy setting, especially in this one. The spring vibes were immaculate, which is a perfect read for me (5 ✨). 

 

I felt like the plot was fast-paced. At the beginning of the novel, Mortimer Sweete, one of the owners of the Evenfall sweet shop, passes away. He suspects that his cousin’s (co-owner) wife, Cookie, murdered him because she immediately put a For Sale sign on the sweet shop. Given Brynn’s magical ability to speak to the dead, he entrusts her to solve his murder. This is a cosy mystery where Brynn, her aunts, and her uncle all use their special abilities to try to solve the murder. The ending was disappointing.

I feel like Les and Cookie being responsible for the death of Mort was too easy. I thought it might have been Angie, Mort’s wife, for a time, given her suspicious behaviour toward me and how Mort started begging Brynn to stop her investigation. I think that would have made more sense for the plot, especially since she also wanted him to sell the sweet shop so that they could go to Florida and help their daughter.

Unfortunately, it ended in a way that indicated a third installment, but it has been announced that it won’t happen (3 ✨). 

 

This is a cosy mystery, so there were not many themes, but the ones I noticed were themes of grief, healing, unhappy relationships, and smaller ones like men not going to therapy (2 ✨). 

 

I had such a fun time being back in Evenfall. This installment made me want to reread In the Company of Witches so badly (4 ✨).