This review contains affiliate links, which earn me a small commission when you click and purchase, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my small business and allowing me to continue providing you a reliable resource for clean book ratings.
Rachel Rowan had a knack for discovering other people’s secrets. When she felt snubbed by her small community, she used that ability to blackmail the residents of the town. She used her three children’s gifts for her own ends but was cruel to them, even abused them. Philippa can charm others; Victoria is an empath who can sense feelings; Liam can learn about an object’s history or any emotions associated with it by touching it.
When Rachel dies, her now-grown children have to figure out how to deal with the fallout of years of their mother’s wicked deeds — which include facing a lot of angry town residents and even solving a murder. In addition to trying to stay safe themselves in the face of danger, the three must start to come to terms with the emotional damage their mother inflicted on them.
Victoria fled Grimsby to escape her mother’s grip and attend college. She’s built a good career in the big city as an art restorer, but she’s not truly happy. And she still feels guilty about leaving her siblings behind, especially her younger brother, whom their mother used until the very end. But Vic has to return after her mother’s death — and then stick around for a while, because Liam gets arrested for the murder of her mother’s business assistant. She is determined that he be set free and that the real culprit be found. She finds herself working with the high school boyfriend she also left behind, who’s now an FBI agent and back in town for a short time too. Despite her desire to keep up all her barriers, she finds herself slowly letting them down.
It may just be possible for the Rowan siblings to bring some healing to their town and find some themselves after the damage Rachel Rowan did to them all. But it won’t be easy, and it certainly will be dangerous.
A Spell of Rowans is an interesting mystery book given a twist with touches of magic, but it’s more a compelling story of family, of three adults who were abused while growing up but who find their way back to each other and to overcoming what they went through. I enjoyed it. (It has a lot of elements in common with The Catalain Book of Secrets.)
Rated: Moderate. Profanity includes about a dozen instances of moderate language, 15 uses of mild language and one use of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes kissing and a sex scene that starts with kissing and removing of some clothes and then goes “off-screen.” Violence includes a strangling/choking murder, a shooting death with mentions of blood, a woman being pushed down stairs, an attempted murder, a death by magic, an attempted rape combined with a stabbing, mention of a man’s past rape crimes, and several recollected scenes of child abuse.
*I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Click here to purchase your copy of A Spell of Rowans on Amazon.
