Bea Reviews Magic and Murder Among the Dwarves by Erik Bundy

Publisher: Untold Press
Format Read: Kindle book
Source: publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: March 15, 2014
Buying Links: Amazon* | Barnes & Noble
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

Amanda is used to living a life that is less than ordinary. Haunted nightly by her late husband, she is a psychic living next door to a colony of dwarves. Despite males normally taking on the task, the colony’s females ask her to find a lost baby for them, and then hire her to tell them who strangled their midwife with a diaper and cut out her gossiping tongue.

She’s thrilled at the honor, but Amanda must learn to tame her own unruly psychic power. The shadowy side of her gift raises a demon that attacks her, stalks her, and slashes her hand. When she feels something live wriggle in her wound, she knows no one can fight her battle for her. She must face her demon alone.

The town’s sheriff asks Amanda to help him solve the disappearance of a missing teenage girl. Her involvement in this case brings a predator into her life, an enemy who allies himself with her demon. To make matters worse, the midwife’s murderer comes after her, too. Amanda, though, has no intention of becoming anyone’s victim.

Death is no longer her worst possible fate.

Bea's Thoughts:

The title pretty well sums up the book; it's all about magic and murder among dwarves although the story is told from the point of view of a female human who is hired to investigate the murder of of local dwarf woman. Amanda has an ability that she calls oddsense that seems to be a combination of clairvoyance and premonition. It's this ability that gets her hired to find the killer of the dwarf community's midwife. She's also still dealing with the death of her husband Jason and gets involved in the search for a missing local human girl. There's a lot going on in the story and it dragged in a few places. During the last 40 percent or thereabouts the pace picked up and I became invested in the story. Prior to that, my attention wandered. I enjoyed the story well enough but the author's style was at times ponderous. He did a nice job though of sprinkling clues both false and true and most of the time I was not able to predict what would happen. While I didn't always love the dwarves I did appreciate Bundy's take on them. These dwarves are true to the old stories but set in a current times with an interesting back story. "Magic and Murder Among the Dwarves" is an original story with a mix of fantasy, folk tales, mythology, romance and mystery. It's character driven more than plot driven but there's some action and suspense and some dark undertones. It's not a cheerful story but there's hope mixed in with the sorrow and it's original, which is refreshing in fantasy.

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