This book was rather a deception for me. I love urban fantasy, I love cosy mysteries and I love cats, but I still wasn’t charmed by this story. On the bright side I read the book rather easily, the sign that many readers may like it more then I did. 

The main characteristic of the book is its settings: an imaginary little town (well I suppose it’s imaginary) where all streets and shops have names made with cats’ puns. It supposed to be sweet and charming, I guess, but I’m rather ashamed to say that I find it irritating and a little bit silly. Furthermore I often had the impression of a murder story in a small town mixed with a chicklitt romance – without romance -, which hold a weird tonality (even is some parts sounded oddly like romance where it couldn’t/shoudn’t have).

The witch part was very good in the beginning, I loved the idea of bewitched toys, but I was frequently startled the compulsion of the heroin to drug everybody around her to manipulate their emotions and make them do, or say, thinks they wouldn’t have want to do or say, or even falling asleep without being able to wake for hours. Morally wrong and potentially dangerous. Of course the excuse is that she must do that to find her friend ‘s murderer; and if she really had to do it alone, I’d admit her techniques more easily. But the problem is that I never could suspend by disbelief about her legitimacy to meddle in an investigation that hadn’t even began. And when it finally has begun, she makes very absurd decisions, information retention and speaking mindlessly to people around her! In the end, if the murder mystery was neatly solved, and satisfying, it wasn’t a difficult case at all, and the police would have found the murderer quickly and easily. The heroine intervention was completely superfluous logically speaking (yes, I know, without her there wouldn’t have been any story).

Still, the writing is pleasant and the main character interesting, so if you’re not as an hairsplitter than I am, if the premises of the book appeals to you, you may appreciate it much more than I did.

(I thank Netgalley and Ringtail Press for sending me the ARC in exchange for my honest review)