By
USA Today Bestselling Author
Kim Richardson

All I wanted to do was sit back and relax with a certain, hot, very, very hot, panty-melting hot—wereape. But, instead, I’m busy trying to find the queen of hell.

Have I found her? Not yet. And I’m running out of places to look. I know it’s only a matter of time before she does something stupid—like obliterate an entire town because they dressed better than her because that’s who she is.

But I’ve got worse problems.

Things soon spiral down the crapper when two teenagers are found dead in Hollow Cove. The evidence points to something witchy.

A new evil hangs over our town, a significant threat to the Davenport witches and all the witches in Hollow Cove. I must defeat this new threat to keep my loved ones safe.

Easy peasy, right?
We’ll see.

I really love this series, but you really have to read these books in order.

The Sisters of the Circle are gone, killed by Lilith the goddess they were freeing from her imprisonment in hell. Now she’s gone and Tessa needs to find her.

When Tessa reads a note from Gilbert the owl shifter mayor that announces the annual pie festival but is banning Tessa from any participation, she’s angry and annoyed. Gilbert is being petty over accidents, not intentional destruction.

She’s in Davenport house with her father and asking him all about Lilith and how she came to be locked up by Lucifer in the first place. With Obiryn’s help and patience she’s even getting her Demon Mojo under control.

When she returns to her room she has an unexpected visitor, Lilith in the flesh. While she tries to figure out if Lilith is planning any retribution against innocents because of her incarceration, Tessa is informed she owes Lilith a favor for not killing her. She’s not collecting on it yet, but she will, soon.

The next Merlin case comes in and Tessa’s aunts are upset, two teenage boys, murdered and horrifically. There’s definitely magic involved, and in a sick and twist way. Even though she’s just spoken with Lilith, that’s where Tessa’s mind heads when it comes to lots of power and magic.

Allison of course has to change things up and cause problems for Tessa. Marcus texted to come down and wait in his office for him, but ‘Gorilla Barbie’ insists on taking her down to the morgue. The parents of the dead boys realize she’s a witch even before Allison announces it and things get a bit dangerous. Marcus gets things back under control and tells Tessa to leave.

Instead of heading home she hits the ley lines to speak with her father about recapturing Lilith. That conversation doesn’t go well, but he agrees to look into possibilities. Then she returns to Marcus.

The danger ramps up on her way home when she’s attacked by three hooded strangers, demons with different and more powerful magic than she’s seen before.

A visit to Lilith proves nothing and almost gets her killed. Then more murders happen. Only this time something else occurs right after.

This is a favorite scene.

Ruth joined us, the smell of her White magic—pine trees and earth along with a wildflower meadow—emitting from her. “I’m finished,” she said, looking a little flushed. Worry lines wrinkled her forehead, the skin around her blue eyes creased.

“It’s Lilith,” I told her. “Same MO. Who else could be this psychotic?” I didn’t need Ruth’s magic to tell me the same old Earth magic was used for these killings.

Ruth’s silence was my only answer. She glanced away, looking defeated, her eyes sad and shimmering with unshed tears.

Even Dolores looked overwhelmed, her usual confident stance having more of a slouch in the shoulders. This was beyond her skills, her magic capabilities. She knew it. We all knew it.

I felt a hand brush the small of my back.

“You okay?” asked Marcus. The heat of his body was soothing and delicious as he leaned in.

I let myself fall into him, taking in his musky male scent and wishing this wasn’t happening. I envisioned being somewhere with him and the only thing between us was—well—nothing.

“No. I don’t think I’ll ever be okay.” My voice faded until it was almost a whisper. I was trying to hold it together, trying not to have a full-on freak-out moment, but damn it, that goddess was making it really hard.

“We’ll figure this out,” said the chief. The fact that he wasn’t saying it wasn’t my fault made me feel worse.

We all knew whose fault it was. Mine.

“You were right about one thing,” came Marcus’s voice near my ear. The feeling of his body next to mine was comforting, and I soaked it all in.

I turned so I could look up at him. “What’s that?” I met his eyes, my pulse catching at the sadness I saw there. It reminded me of the vulnerability I’d seen in them that time in the basement when our auras had mixed when we got a glimpse into each other’s souls. It had been an extraordinary experience, one that drew us closer until we were a unit.

He pulled his gray eyes away from mine. “That she wouldn’t stop. That she’d keep on killing for the mere pleasure of it.”

I didn’t have anything to say to that, so I kept my mouth shut.

With a heavy heart I stared at Jeff and Cameron, their black bags heavy with the remains of those two werecats. They walked away until they reached a gray SUV and popped the trunk.

“Let’s go, ladies,” said Dolores, her long face grim as she turned from the scene. “Let’s see what Obiryn can tell us about trapping this devil.”

We had no need to stay here. We’d be much more productive back at Davenport House with glasses of wine between our hands. We did our best thinking and planning that way. Red wine is a superfood.

I fell into step with Marcus as we all followed Dolores down the alleyway toward the Volvo station wagon parked at the curb. Beverly and Ruth walked in silence behind us.

I felt a vibration chime through me just as the light faded as though storm clouds had suddenly covered the sky—just a little too fast.

Curious, I halted and looked up into the sky.

“What the hell is that?” I asked no one in particular.

We’d come to the crime scene under a blue sky, a speckling of clouds, and a warm morning.

But now a cold wind rose with a green horizon.

Well, what looked like a green horizon. Only this one rose from the ground in sheets of semitransparent green.

An icy wave of fear hit me, and my stomach lurched. I stared at the now-green anomaly that was slowly rising, far out in the distance, to what appeared to be circling the entire town. Energy pulsed and hummed, and I could see lightning flashing and sparking within the sheets like an electrical web.

The magic that came off it was cold, old, and just like the magic I’d felt at the crime scenes.

I spun on the spot, seeing it rise from every corner of town. The green sheets continued to grow, about a hundred feet in the air, until they were high above our heads and had come together like a giant half sphere. It was semitransparent, kind of like my shield protection sphere.

But I didn’t get the feeling we were being protected.

“It’s a dome?” I said, my ears popping as though the pressure had changed. “There’s a dome over the town? Why would Lilith do this?” I turned to look at Marcus to see if he was just as clueless as I was as to why this just happened. But his face was hard, and the tension in his posture showed he was uneasy.

I looked at the sky, shaking my head. “This is just like her. This is her idea of a joke.”

My temper flared. Lilith was the only being with magic this strong to produce some sort of magical dome or force field. I didn’t know what she was planning, but whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

“This isn’t Lilith,” came Dolores’s voice, and I turned toward her at the warning in her tone, just noticing the collective fear reflecting in my aunts’ faces. The three aunts were looking at each other, communicating in silence the way only tight siblings could.

“This is bad. Really, really bad.” Ruth looked around widely, a terrible dread in her eyes. She wrapped her arms around her middle like she was cold.

“How did they find us?” Beverly’s face was tense and tight with fear. “I never thought they’d come for our town.”

Dolores clenched her jaw. “They have. They did.”

I gave Marcus a sidelong look and then glanced at Dolores. “Who’s they? What are you not saying? If this isn’t Lilith, then who?”

“Dolores?” Marcus’s tone was urgent, and I recognized that rage and anxiety in his eyes, like a trapped animal. He swept his gaze from the dome to my tall aunt.

Dolores’s eyes were fixed on the green dome. Finally, she turned to me and said, “Only one group is capable of this.”

I shrugged. “Who? Who, if not Lilith?” I still thought this was her, but I was open to anything at this point. If it wasn’t Lilith, maybe that was a good thing. It meant we could deal with it.

My aunt met my eyes and said, “The Guild of Dark Wizards.”

Well, crap.
Richardson, Kim. Mystic Madness (The Witches of Hollow Cove Book 8).Kindle Locations (1494-1543). Kindle Edition.

With a dome surrounding Hollow Cove, there’s no email, texts, cell phone, landlines nothing. Of course, Gilbert throws a fit, but it’s interesting that the reason they were found by the Guild is his fault. His advertising the pie festival put the town on the internet. All it would have taken was a simple search.

This is one of the harder books to read, it all seems so overwhelming, and solutions aren’t working. People are dying because they’re shifters and everything is going awry.

Needless to say, I couldn’t put this book down, I had to know they would solve this. So many tears, laughter, romance and surprises.

5 Contented Purrs for Kim!

Kim Richardson

Kim Richardson is a USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of urban fantasy, fantasy, and young adult books. She lives in the eastern part of Canada with her husband, two dogs and a very old cat. Kim’s books are available in print editions, and translations are available in over 7 languages.