Rating:4.5⭐️
“Thanks for your concern, but I don’t need your protection. I have a mystical cat, an unprincipled gnome with a violent streak, and I have my magic.” Betty Lennox
In my quest for writers and books with new approaches to their main characters and the tropes I enjoy reading, this is a great new find that I can’t wait to share.
Although the author is a popular writer, C.P. Rider is new to me. The Smokethorn Paranormals is the first series I’ve read by Rider and all its characters and elements have struck a chord with me.
Starting with the main character of Betty Lennox, a grief torn earth witch, living in a 19 ft Airstream trailer in the paranormal seniors’ trailer park she inherited from her mother. Betty’s curvaceous, dark-haired reflective of her Mexican heritage, and trying to leave her desert hometown of Smokethorn, California. But she has to honor her mother’s wishes and legacy and find the right earth witch to buy the property.
From the paranormal senior citizens in living in the trailer park, beautifully realized and hilariously depicted in a number of scenes, to the desert area around her, the location feels fresh and authentic. A vibrant new world for a series and group of extraordinary characters. That extends to the town itself.
Rider’s Betty Lennox is a woman so consumed by her loss that she doesn’t even realize how it’s caused her to become stuck in life, a kind of limbo. Unable to move forward however she tries. It’s a powerful portrayal of love, loss and grief. And magic.
For it’s magic or its absence that a clear sign of loss and grief.
Betty’s friends, one of whom is a retired necromancer in her eighties, Ada,
Cover design by The Book Brander”
The Smokethorn Paranormals Series :
Strike It Witch #1
Any Which Wolf #2
Wicked Witch of the Wolf #3 – May 31,2025
Buy link
Strike It Witch: The Smokethorn Paranormals Series Book 1
Blurb
“Thanks for your concern, but I don’t need your protection. I have a mystical cat, an unprincipled gnome with a violent streak, and I have my magic.”
Betty Lennox is an elemental witch on a mission to leave her desert hometown of Smokethorn, California, for good. But first, she needs to sell the property she inherited from her mother to someone who, among other things, doesn’t mind living in a paranormal seniors’ trailer park in a town where it’s so hot in summer that the local demons head back to Hades to cool off.
She’s also running low on cash to keep up the protection spell on the park. When she’s offered a job to procure a cursed grimoire, one so dangerous the local coven won’t touch it, she takes it. Even though the job comes from a vicious wolf alpha who won’t rest until she’s dead.
To get the grimoire and keep her soul, she’ll have to lean on her partner—a magic cat named Fennel—Cecil, a homicidal garden gnome, a graveyard demon, her retired necromancer best friend, and her second-least favorite bartender in town, who also just happens to be the wolf alpha’s son.
If they can manage to work together without killing each other, Betty just might survive.
For fans of urban fantasy with a side of slow-burn romance.
- Publisher: VC Group, LLC (October 30, 2024)
- Publication date: October 30, 2024
- Language: English
- Print length: 264 pages
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 