Joyce Lavene

In the latest mystery from the bestselling authors of Looking for Mr. Good Witch, the retired witches of Wilmington, North Carolina, are ready to kick up their heels... With their coven s spell book still missing, Molly and Elsie along with their ghostly friend Olivia, her daughter Dorothy, and her boyfriend Brian are all on edge, especially now that Dorothy s infamously wicked father is back in the picture. So when they receive an invitation to an exclusive Witches Ball, the ladies jump at the chance to dress up and have some fun. The castle locale is spectacular and the party is hopping, but the festivities come to a swift end when a member of the Grand Council of Witches is murdered. With the whole place on lock down, the coven is determined to find the cunning killer, even with an angry council and a real Spanish Inquisitor breathing down their necks..."

Three years ago in 1867, Julia Jackson was a well to do young woman from Boston whose fianc , Jonathon, was killed right before her eyes. Obsessed with finding the killer, a man whose face she saw only in a flash as he walked up and shot Jonathon, she leaves her family and her life behind. She starts a new life as 'Jacks' Jackson-a cigar smoking, dead eye, female Pinkerton agent...pretending to be a man. Now Allan Pinkerton needs Jacks to find the man who kidnapped the wife and son of a railroad official, David Boyd. Their only clues are the severed finger from the man's wife, complete with wedding ring, and a map of the Qualla boundary, the Cherokee reservation in North Carolina. Jacks doesn't like the way the whole thing sounds from the beginning. David Boyd isn't important enough to target for a kidnapping. And why travel so far with two hostages? But Pinkerton tells her that he believes the man responsible for the kidnapping worked with Jonathon's murderer in a train robbery five years ago. Jacks agrees to go after the kidnapper with hopes of catching him before he can reach his home grounds. Pinkerton insists that Jacks bring three men with her-Boyd, her new partner, and a Cherokee guide named Running Wolf, who's always watching her, like he's trying to figure it out. Can Jacks catch the kidnapper with her secret-and her life-intact?

Join the national bestselling authors of the Missing Pieces Mysteries as they conjure up the first supernatural mystery in the Retired Witches series... Once upon a time in Wilmington, North Carolina, three witches ran a curio shop named Smuggler's Arcane. But as the years passed, their magical powers started to fade--leaving them no choice but to conjure up a retirement package... Before they could blink their eyes or twitch their noses, Molly, Elsie, and Olivia somehow became eligible for AARP. But they can't fly off to Boca Raton just yet. First they must give up their magic, recruit and train three new witches, and pass on their cherished spellbook. They've barely begun to consider potential practitioners when Olivia winds up dead and their spellbook is stolen. To honor their friend and reclaim their spells, Molly and Elsie are about to go wand-to-wand with a dangerous young witch more powerful than the trio was in their prime. And this time they're going to need more than magic up their sleeves...