Witch in Time-Madelyn Alt

Witch in Time
Madelyn Alt
Berkley, Apr 2010, $23.95
ISBN: 9780425232613

Over the last nine months in Stony Mill, Indiana, the sensitives feel a chaotic energy surge sweeping the town and leading to murder and mayhem. The witches and the sensitives are friends so arrange a coalition led by Liss the witch who has deliberately developed her powers and encourages her co-worker Maggie O'Neill to do so too as she is a strong empath.

Maggie gets involved in the chaotic energy when she goes to the hospital with her boyfriend Marcus Quinn to see her sister Mel giving birth. The spirits follow Maggie into an elevator where she overhears a conversation that implies someone’s death. A few days earlier student Jordan Everett died from an enlarged heart caused by steroid use. Not understanding what the spirits are telling her, Maggie remains with Mel overnight. She overhears an argument between a woman who just gave birth and a man who is not her husband. Her sister’s husband vanishes while Maggie believes Jordan’s death is linked to another death a few days after her sister gave birth to twins. Now she has to prove her assertion with evidence beyond witchery and intuition.

Madelyn Alt’s paranormal amateur sleuth mysteries are always fantastic fun. With a good deal of sensual feelings exchanged between the heroine and her significant other, A Witch In Time has cross genre appeal to romance readers too. Maggie works the case with the spirits trying to tell her the solution, but they are too cryptic, which both frustrates and motivates her. Readers will enjoy this refreshing tale in an original series as learning who the culprit is from those beyond will not hold up in court.

Harriet Klausner