Janet Evanovich is best known for her novels featuring bounty hunter Stephanie Plum (see my review here) but she has also written plenty of other light-hearted titles, often with a co-writer. Wicked Charms was co-written with Phoef Sutton and is one of a series of books featuring as main characters a baker called Lizzy and a supernatural searcher called Diesel. I haven’t read the previous books in the series.
This is a fast-paced book which verges into silliness on occasions but is very entertaining. Diesel is tasked with collecting seven magic stones and Lizzy is one of only two people in the world who can identify these when she comes into contact with them. Diesel appears and disappears in Lizzy’s life and so too does a similar figure, Wulf, who has his own assistant. Diesel and Wulf are both searching for the stones but they are not exactly enemies – both men are attracted to Lizzy.
In this story a clue to the location of a stone is found in a pirate exhibition and all sorts of people become involved with Lizzy and Diesel as they chase Wulf and his helper to follow the clues and recover the treasure. The plot is mostly unimportant except that it provides a framework for a series of chases, mishaps and amusing banter. Each of these books seems to have a theme related to the seven deadly sins and this one is greed.
There is nothing to dislike in this story but the breakneck pace and lack of depth can get a bit wearing after a while. It’s told from Lizzy’s point of view and she isn’t really a deep thinker so she spends most of her time reacting to events. The author(s) is also developing a love triangle between Lizzy, Wulf and Diesel which I had to confess was the plot device that stopped me reading the Stephanie Plum series because it was never resolved.
I enjoyed reading this book but I am not going to track down the rest of the series or any of this author’s other titles. I would soon become very tired of reading a lot of very light and frothy books such as this one.
Anne Is Reading 