Wicked Weaves (Renaissance Faire Mysteries, No. 1)

The setting for this mystery is unique and was a pleasure "to visit" for a while. I liked the characters' witty names for their shops and overall this was a great read. I will be looking for the next installment. The authors' Poison Petals series is great too.

I am not sure how our writing due, Jim & Joyce Laverne, come up with the locals and interesting characters for all their wonderful books, but I am sure glad that they do. In this new book "Wicked Weaves," the entire story takes place in an amusement park called, "Renaissance Faire Village." What a place this is. All of the characters that work, and live there are in costume of the Medieval times. We have a King and Queen and all their noble servants in toe. We also have craftsmen of the era and shops along the way for tourists to shop in as if they were in that time. I found just this part of the storyalone extremely interesting before I even got to the mystery. I actually wanted to visit Renaissance Faire Village myself. Our main character, Jessie Morton, worked at the Village every summer. Every year she would work with one of the craftsmen learning their trade. This year she was with, Mary, a woman who weaved Gullah basket. Besides leaving the weave Jessie helped Mary in her store. Mary was a mysterious woman that no one really knew much about, and it wasn't long into the read before a dead body is discovered. Whose body? None other than Mary's husband whom she has not seen for years and years. Immediately suspicion is thrown on Mary as the killer and Jessie is also implicated. Certainly not something she wanted to experience. All clues seem to confirm that Mary is guilty, but Jessie knows this could not be so; the problem, how to prove it? And just what about her past is Mary trying so hard to keep hidden? Soon it begins to unravel as her brother and son show up in the story. Who knew Mary had a son? And why was he never in Mary's life before? Ah! the plot thickens to the delight of the reader... To add a little spice to the story we are taken into the rollercoaster love life of Jessie and Chase, who also works at the Village. The authors did a good job merging the characters relationship with the mystery going on in the rest of the story. It ran quite smoothly and as I said, added just the right amount of seasoning to give the story warmth. So, just who did kill Mary's husband? Don't expect to figure this one out early on in the read because you will be very disappointed in yourself. You just end up having too many questions and not enough answers to know until the very end. As always, Joyce and Jim have done it again with a top-notch mystery read that is laced with a tad of romance, exceptional, colorful characters and local, and a surprise ending. Just a great book from beginning to end, and one I am proud to recommend.

Assistant Professor Jessie Morton has spent the school year teaching history and her summer moths apprenticing to an artisan at the Myrtle Beach Renaissance Village; this time she is tutored by basket maker Mary Shift. Each summer she has a romantic fling, but so far not with the bailiff Chase, who she is attracted to; she hopes this summer is their time together. One day Jessie observes Mary arguing with a man who acts like he knows her intimately. Later she learns that a similar looking man is dead with one of Mary's weaves tied tightly around his neck. The victim was her husband Joshua who tossed her out years ago; his brother Abraham came to inform Mary that Josh is coming and she needs to send him home or he will be an outcast like her. Abraham had taken Jah, Mary's son into his home and pretended the lad was his son who actually died. He claims that Mary killed him instead of nursed him. The police suspect Mary killed her spouse, but Jessie thinks otherwise. Chase helps her investigate and they soon find an additional suspect besides Mary, Abraham, and Jah but no evidence pointing to anyone except Mary. The Renaissance Faire mystery is the start of a new exciting amateur sleuth series from the Lavene team; known for their "poisoned" Peggy Lee Garden tales. Part of the fun of this solid whodunit is the vivid description of a the Renaissance Village; anyone who has not been to one will want to go as the Lavene duo makes it so enticing; in fact they make their South Carolina based Faire sound similar to the delightful Georgia Renaissance Festival. The protagonist is an interesting graduate student who feels comfortable in her endeavors when she classifies them into neat compartments; Chase refuses to be filed away as a summer fling as he wants more from her. The whodunit is cleverly developed so that four suspects linked to the basket weaver (Mary's lover being the other) surface with motives while clues seemingly to only point to Jessie's teacher. Harriet Klausner