Author Notes

 

Thank you so much to Keren Reed for all the double, double toil and trouble of this one. And thank you to the SO, who has basically been left on his own for the last three months while I hammered (yes, that’s a witch joke) this out. Thank you in advance to Kale Williams for what I know will be a terrific audiobook. And thank you, thank you, thank you to all my patrons, past and present.

In this, my new Bedknobs and Broomsticks trilogy, I mix murder and magic, but for all intents and purposes set the books in our own recognizable contemporary world. Please note: this is the first book in a three-part trilogy. While the essential questions are answered—Will Cosmo find the grimoire? Will he go to jail for murder? Will he marry John?—by the end of the novel many more complex mysteries have been raised. In other words, this trilogy follows the structure of most fantasy series versus most mystery series—and that is because this trilogy is as much a fantasy series as a mystery series.

When you’ve been writing as long as I have, one of the challenges is to keep your longtime fans happy while still changing things up enough to intrigue new readers. Trying to find the right balance of don’t-mess-with-what-ain’t-broke and Try Something New! is always interesting, and I’ve come to the conclusion that all I can do is write what I like and hope enough people enjoy it to come along on the next adventure.

I wanted to write something perhaps a little lighter and more romantic than I typically do—a cozy, sexy mystery with, er, witches—sort of like Bewitched meets McMillan and Wife meets Josh Lanyon.

So, yes, the police procedure is largely based on a television show of the 1970s (yes, I KNOW that San Francisco police commissioners operate as a commission and are not omnipotent), and true, there is no actual Witchcraft tradition known as Abracadantès. Yes, there are all kinds of nods (Easter eggs, if you prefer) to Bewitched and McMillan and a few others, and yes, the relative of an old villain you may recall from another series does make an appearance.

If you’re a stickler for real life and gritty crime drama, this book is not for you. But if you enjoy the occasional romp into romantic and mysterious fantasy, I think—hope—you’ll have as much fun reading Mainly by Moonlight as I did writing it.