Maggie Shayne, Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered

Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered

Maggie Shayne

Berkley, Dec 2005, $13.00

ISBN: 0425205762

"Everything She Does is Magick". The Sortilege witches raised their grandniece Aurora from almost the day she was born when her mother abandoned her. The trio believes the newborn will be the mother of the greatest witch ever if she mates with Nathan McBride, who must remain a virgin until he beds Aurora. Now twenty-seven years later, and with much interference in Nathan's life, Meriwether, Fauna and Flora believe the time is right to match-make Aurora and Nathan.

"Musketeer By Moonlight". Mary Catherine Hammersmith, owner of M.C. Hammer Investigations, has a strong reputation as a private eye amongst the city's working women. Her current assignment leads her into danger from gangsters who kill as a way of life. Desperate, she chants a protection spell only to conjure up Alexandre, musketeer to the French king.

"The Con and the Crusader". The two cops insist they have evidence to send conman Jack McCain to prison for a long time, though his pigeon has been drugpin Arturo. Instead they offer him a deal to forget what they have, if he helps them bring down Arturo. However, before he makes any deal to cooperate, Arturo's men arrive on the scene. Jack fleeing in the dark, jumps over a wall only to fall into a well. However he tumbles into the past, where ironically he is mistaken for a criminal. A desperate Emily Hawkins rescues him by proposing marriage, which he accepts assuming he will find a way out of this fiasco.

Readers will be bewitched, bewildered, but defiantly not bothered by this trio of terrific romantic fantasy novellas.

Harriet Klausner