Author: Bella Falls
Publisher: Evermore Press
Series: Southern Charms Mystery
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Cozy Mystery
Rating: 4 Stars
Medium: Audio Book

I fell easily into book two of this series straight after finishing the first. It was great to continue Charli’s story as she settles back into her home in Honeysuckle Hollow. Just like the first one the characters are engaging, the plot is thick with a wanting to get into it enticement, and the mystery of it is well paced throughout the book so it doesn’t feel like we’re stalling with a bunch of fluff to tied us to the end of the book itself.

Potential spoilers from here on.

We’re still having Charli pulled between Mason and Dash, though for a good part of the beginning of the book it seems like Dash is definitely winning. Meanwhile, while he’s interested in her and she’s definitely interested in him, Mason’s started to be snippy, sharp, and pushing her away. There are a few teasing hints at an event that went down, the full actions of which were fully revealed in this book. I was able to get enough that I knew some kind of event happened and Mason was embarrassed about how he acted at the event, figuring that it completely changed and potentially hurt his relationship with Charli.

Full disclosure, I’m listening to the audio book and I purchased the books 1-3 bundle so I hadn’t looked at the series list to see that there is, in fact, a short story that falls between the first two books about a singles mixer – which I’m assuming is the referenced event. However, I haven’t purchased or read it at the time of writing this review. And while I do love shorts and novellas that fall between books and explain events we might not have focused on in the full series, this one was a little jarring because it directly affected Mason’s relationship with Charli – to the point that I was honestly really confused as to why he was being such a giant ass to her when the last I had left off with the pair, all she’d done since was dance with Dash – something he allowed to happen by letting the Shifter cut in – and then Dash licked some frosting off her fingers at a town event. So relationship wise, that definitely threw me a little bit to try and figure out what had happened or was happening.

Mystery wise, I love the play of having one of Charli’s friends fall for the vampire who was visiting town and turning the two friends against each other a little because Charli didn’t like the guy but her friend was definitely at the point of wanting to date him. It’s definitely a relatable situation. And while I do love how the mystery played out, including some of the red herrings that we were given because they were set up, I’m hoping that the over all person at the center of the whodunit doesn’t continuously be the same in being the one person from out of town. It’s going to make the who extremely obvious if the series continues that pattern.

All in all, definitely going to be continuing book three. And definitely going to be checking out that short I apparently missed.