Guest Review: Halfway Dead by Terry Maggert

Halfway Dead by Terry Maggert
Narrator: Erin Spencer
Series: Halfway Witchy #1
on 7 August 2015
Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
Genres: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy
Format: Audiobook
Source: Publisher

Rating Report
Story (Plot)
Performance
Production Quality
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Overall:

Carlie McEwan loves many things. She loves being a witch. She loves her town of Halfway, NY - a tourist destination nestled on the shores of an Adirondack lake. Carlie loves her enormous familiar, Gus, who is 25 pounds of judgmental Maine Coon cat, and she positively worships her grandmother, a witch of incredible power and wisdom. Carlie spends her days cooking at the finest - and only - real diner in town, and her life is a balance between magic and the mundane, just as she likes it.

When a blond stranger sits at the diner counter and calls her by name, that balance is gone. Major Pickford asks Carlie to lead him into the deepest shadows of the forest to find a mythical circle of chestnut trees, thought lost to forever to mankind. There are ghosts in the forest, and one of them cries out to Carlie across the years. Come find me.

Danger, like the shadowed pools of the forest, can run deep. The danger is real, but Carlie's magic is born of a pure spirit. With the help of Gus, and Gran, and a rugged cop who really does want to save the world, she'll fight to bring a ghost home, and deliver justice to a murderer who hides in the cool, mysterious green of a forest gone mad with magic.

©2015 Terry Maggert (P)2015 Terry Maggert

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Set in Halfway, New York, Carlie works at the only real diner in town. She has a large, ornery cat named Gus, and she treasures her grandmother. Oh, and she’s also a witch. Things were pretty quiet until a few restless spirits and a determined cop started pestering Carlie. Now there is a child’s spirit trapped in the depths of the forest that she must free or learn to live with a troubled conscience.

I had a lot of fun with this book. Carlie is a character I want to be friends with. She’s independent but not prickly about having friends who show they care about her. She also takes care of her things in the belief that they will be there, in good condition, to take care of her. It’s an idea that I strive for even if I don’t often obtain it. Carlie doesn’t hesitate to show folks that she can take care of herself and she doesn’t apologize for whatever bruises a heavy-handed person might receive from her. Yet she isn’t some alpha female always feeling she has to fight to maintain her place in the world. Over all, she’s really well balanced and I really like that about her.

My inner biologist loved the bit about the long-lost chestnut species. They were key in locating the source of the troubled spirits. The first third of the book is spent in the small town of Halfway (there are wendigo!) but the rest of the story is spent in the woods. Get your nature hiking boots out folks! Carlie and Major Pickford, a cop involved in the case, set out to find this mysterious source of unsettled spirits. My one teensy spoiler is that along the way they meet Wulfric who I think will continue on in the series. Wulfric’s existence in the woods brings up plenty of questions but he also supplies plenty of answers. Carlie and crew have quite the fight ahead of them. Not all will come out of it OK.

I was truly surprised by what they found in the woods. First, there was Wulfric (but I won’t spoil why he’s such a surprise). The next surprise was a kind of lost legends surprise. I found it clever and amusing at the same time. Finally, there is an epic battle near the end. For the first in the series, I wasn’t expecting that level of a fight but in retrospect, it does fit. Carlie isn’t some newly minted witch. No, she’s had years of training and has a good idea of what she can and can’t do. All around, it was a great ride and a satisfying read.

I received a free copy of this book via The Audiobookworm.

The Narration: Erin Spencer was a good pick for this book. She mad a very practical Carlie. I also liked her accent for Wulfric. Her male voices were believable and she did a great job imbuing scenes with emotion as needed.
This review first appeared on Dab of Darkness.

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