A Veiled Deception: A Vintage Magic Mystery

by: Annette Blair

Published by: Berkley Prime Crime

Reviewed by Kathy Perschmann

Madeira (Maddie) Cutler, fashion designer and vintage clothing collector, comes home to Mystick Falls, Connecticut from New York to help with her younger sister’s wedding. Maddie’s widowed father, a professor, cannot handle the wedding planning on his own.

Sherry is marrying Justin, heir to the Vancortland wealth, against the wishes of his social- climbing mother, Deborah. Deborah seems to prefer the nasty Jasmine Updike, Justin’s old college flame. On Maddie’s first day home, during a hectic engagement party, Maddie finds Jasmine dead in an upstairs bedroom in the Cutler family home, an old inn with lots of stairs and rooms throughout three levels.

Maddie’s brother Alex and his FBI partner Nick Jaconetti, help the local police with the odd case. Everyone seemed to hate Jasmine, including Deborah. Justin and Sherry had been missing for a portion of the party–and it turns out Jasmine was pregnant. Deborah had been planning what she hoped was an unpleasant surprise for Sherry. She wanted her to use the Vancortland family wedding dress. When Maddie touches it, she gets a vision of an unhappy bride from the past, and a much younger Deborah arguing with her. Will solving this old mystery help solve the modern-day murder? Maddie is desperate to help prove her sister’s innocence.
There are more visions, witches (Maddie’s Aunt Fiona, also an attorney!) and ghosts.

Was Jasmine really the intended victim, and what was the motive? Will Sherry be okay? Who is the bride in the vision? Will Maddie and Nick ever really get together? And was Maddie’s mother really a witch?

Armchair Interviews says: This delightful first in a series will entertain and intrigue you with eccentric and quirky characters and an unusual setting.

Author’s Web site: http://www.AnnetteBlair.com