About this series
Jane Moone is hired to identify the witch who cursed a sheep. But her client, Kate Grazier, has already decided who did it -- Dorcas Whiting, the hedge witch who happens to be Jane's father's sweetheart. Dorcas would never harm an innocent sheep and everyone knows it, but she's arrested before Jane can credit the accusation. Now she has to persuade the poorest farmers in the district -- Dorcas's patients -- to stand before the magistrate in Greenslade Hall and testify on the witch's behalf.
As if that weren't enough trouble for one week, Jane hears stories about another old witch. She's begging at kitchen doors and walking away angry as often as not. She flings curses everywhere she goes, most of them missing their mark. But some are truly dangerous.
Jane and her father, a powerful wizard, must peer into the heart of a near-fatal curse and find the wandering witch before an innocent dies.
Titles in the series (3)
- The Case of the Spotted Tailor: A Cunning Woman Mystery, #1
1
Welcome to Ayreford in 1591, where cats can talk and fairies are real. Jane Moone leaves her thriving practice as a cunning woman in London to return to Ayreford to care for her father Amias, who has grown quite peculiar in the years since she left home. Before she can find out what's troubling him, her only client's husband is murdered. The tailor is found in his workshop covered in red spots with a bottle of tonic from Moone's apothecary near at hand. A rival cunning man accuses Amias of poisoning him and the old man is arrested. Jane knows her father is innocent. She joins forces with a handsome barrister to study the scene. They find evidence to support Amias, but each item is altered when a blackbird sings. That bird has been following them everywhere. The barrister doesn't notice, but Jane finds it alarming. How can a bird change the label on a bottle or alter the sketch of a footprint? Things only get more peculiar. Amias's ginger cat gives Jane wise counsel, a frog-pond fairy claims to know her long-lost mother, and a hedge witch knits hair into spell-stopping nets. Either Jane is caught in a very strange dream or Ayreford is thickly inhabited by the Fair Folk, playing out their ancient rivalries through the unsuspecting townspeople. But Jane can't think about that, either way. Not yet. She'll do whatever she must, however bizarre, to save her father from hanging. And then she'll get the truth from him -- or possibly his cat.
- The Case of the Tangled Maypole: A Cunning Woman Mystery, #2
2
It's May Day, a time of joyful song and dance. But Jane Moone is called at sunrise to view a sorrowful sight — Lucy Quirk, strangled in the maypole's tangled ribbons. Lucy came to Ayreford to re-unite with her long-lost father. The prominent cunning man is delighted to welcome her into his work, as well as his life. But Lucy has her own agenda and soon starts spilling secrets from his confidential patient notebooks. Jane and John Greenslade, local barrister, find plenty of conflict around Lucy's death. The local Puritans wanted to stop May Day once and for all. Quirk wanted to stop his daughter's gossip. Any number of townsfolk might have confided things to the cunning man worth killing to conceal. Worse, Jane's every step is shadowed by troublesome fairies, especially the old river goddess protecting Roger Quirk. But is she trying to help the investigation or hinder it? Jane risks her life to peel back the glamours confusing the case. She's rescued in the end by the last person she ever expected to meet.
- The Case of the Miscast Curse: A Cunning Woman Mystery, #3
3
Jane Moone is hired to identify the witch who cursed a sheep. But her client, Kate Grazier, has already decided who did it -- Dorcas Whiting, the hedge witch who happens to be Jane's father's sweetheart. Dorcas would never harm an innocent sheep and everyone knows it, but she's arrested before Jane can credit the accusation. Now she has to persuade the poorest farmers in the district -- Dorcas's patients -- to stand before the magistrate in Greenslade Hall and testify on the witch's behalf. As if that weren't enough trouble for one week, Jane hears stories about another old witch. She's begging at kitchen doors and walking away angry as often as not. She flings curses everywhere she goes, most of them missing their mark. But some are truly dangerous. Jane and her father, a powerful wizard, must peer into the heart of a near-fatal curse and find the wandering witch before an innocent dies.
Anna Castle
Anna Castle writes the Francis Bacon mysteries and the Lost Hat, Texas mysteries. She has earned a series of degrees -- BA in the Classics, MS in Computer Science, and a PhD in Linguistics -- and has had a corresponding series of careers -- waitressing, software engineering, grammar-writing, assistant professor, and archivist. Writing fiction combines her lifelong love of stories and learning. She physically resides in Austin, Texas and mentally counts herself a queen of infinite space.
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