Welcome to my stop on the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour for Secrets and Scallywags: Magical Mystery Book Club by Elizabeth Pantley. Stop by each blog on the tour for interviews, guest posts, spotlights, reviews and more!
Secrets and Scallywags: Magical Mystery Book Club
by Elizabeth Pantley
Secrets and Scallywags: Magical Mystery Book Club
Paranormal Cozy Mystery
5th in Series
Setting – A Small Oceanfront Community
Better Beginnings, Inc. (September 20, 2023)
Digital Print length : 256 pages
When this club selects a book, magic happens. They become the main characters in the story when the mystery comes to life.
This month’s book selection takes them to a charming island community that’s abuzz over a mysterious boat that washed ashore. Rumor has it that it’s the same pirate boat that sunk a year ago in the bay. The one that supposedly sank with treasure aboard.
When the club meets the ghosts of the men from the boat, they learn the astonishing secrets of the treasure. These ghosts can’t move on until it is found.
Can the motley group find the treasure and free the ghosts? They better, since it’s the only way they can exit the book and get back home.
My review of Secrets and Scallywags
Secrets and Scallywags by Elizabeth Pantley is the fifth book in the Magical Mystery Book Club series Though it’s the fifth book, it can be read as a standalone book since the club has a new member who needs to understand how the book club and its magic work. Therefore, you, as the reader, get to find out a bit about current members and why former members leave. As you can tell from the title, this club is magical, so the reason members leave just might be magical too! Secrets and Scallywags is the second book in this series that I’ve given five stars to. The other was the first book. (I’ve given four stars to the others, and they’re very good!) This one is excellent.
The Magical Mystery Book Club consists of eight members (You’ll see that there is an exception to the rule, but I don’t want to spoil that for you!) who are magically transported into the cozy mystery book they choose to read. As you can see from the book’s synopsis, the club are transported to an island on which a sunken pirate ship has surfaced and rumors fly about a possible treasure. One of the members fears that the pirates will harm them, but the others are excited to meet pirates! When they do meet the pirates, they find that the pirates are ghosts who need their help. As with the other books the club has been transported into, they have to solve the mystery in order to reach the end and go home!
I adore these characters and feel like they really got to shine in Secrets and Scallywags. If you are someone who enjoys reading book series from the beginning, I recommend you do. The characters will become like old friends to you. There’s a quirky, food-obsessed octogenarian as well as a talking cat who have been with the group since before the current owners inherited the inn. You’ll learn about that in the book. These two characters’ banter is very amusing. In addition to the book club members, I really liked the ghost pirates.
Secrets and Scallywags is a character driven book, and I really could appreciate the characters more in this book. Almost all of what the characters do pushes the plot forward. Rather than spending so much time at their inn, the book club gets out and explores the island and its places of business. In one such place, they discover a dead body much to the chagrin of the new member. The club has to remind her that while everything they’re experiencing seems real, they’re really in a cozy mystery book solving the mystery!
If you like magical cozy mystery books, I think you’ll thoroughly enjoy Secrets and Scallywags. The characters are entertaining, the plot is engaging, and the mystery is exciting! I highly recommend it!
I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All views expressed are only my honest opinion.
Author Guest Post: The Best Part about Writing Books Steeped in Magic
When you write a fiction series you need to keep track of a million details. What does each character look like – eye color, hair type, height? Who lives where? How far is it to the ferry dock? What’s the name of the local grocery store? Which characters drink coffee, and which drink tea? The list is endless. There are programs that can help you keep track of all these details, but honestly, in the time I took to enter all the data I’d probably have another book written!
I do keep logs and chapter summaries, and searches are relatively easy to do. Except when it’s a minor point that you totally miss. Yep. I did that.
In one chapter of a book, I mention that a certain magic mirror is teardrop shaped. And then, oops! In another chapter of a different book in the series, I called it an oval. Then came the obsessing.
Will anyone notice? Will they call me out on the change of shape? Or am I the only one who would notice in a million years. Well. Except now that I’m telling you – you know… And if people call it out does that make the book look unprofessional? Obsess. Obsess. Obsess.
But all that obsessing landed me with the perfect answer. And it was so obvious it made me laugh.
The land in which that novel takes place, Destiny Falls, is enchanted. Rooms change size, shape, and location to suit the people who live there. New doors and new rooms suddenly appear. Over time, a building morphs from a castle to a modern-day mansion.
Well, maybe you’re quicker than I was, and you see this coming . . . in the next book, the mirror is a rectangle, and it is hanging lower to the floor so that . . . well. I can’t give everything away now, can I?
With this revelation I realized that writing a series that is based in an enchanted world is a writer’s paradise. I can’t make a mistake now, can I? No matter what happens I can just chalk it up to magic.
About Elizabeth Pantley
Elizabeth Pantley is the international bestselling author of The No-Cry Sleep Solution and twelve other books for parents, published in over twenty languages.
She simultaneously writes well-loved cozy mysteries: The Destiny Falls Mystery & Magic book series and the Magical Mystery Book Club series.
Elizabeth lives in the Pacific Northwest, the gorgeous inspiration for the setting in many of her books.
Author Links
Website: https://www.nocrysolution.com/books/
Newsletter Sign-up: https://www.nocrysolution.com/mailing-list/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DestinyFallsMysteryandMagic
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/destinyfallsmystery/
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/elizabeth-pantley
Purchase Links
Enter the giveaway
Secrets and Scallywags TOUR PARTICIPANTS
September 20 – Mystery, Thrillers, and Suspense – SPOTLIGHT
September 20 – Angel’s Guilty Pleasures – SPOTLIGHT
September 21 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – REVIEW, AUTHOR GUEST POST
September 21 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
September 22 – Hearts & Scribbles – SPOTLIGHT
September 22 – StoreyBook Reviews – REVIEW
September 23 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT
September 23 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – SPOTLIGHT
September 24 – Cozy Up With Kathy – CHARACTER GUEST POST
September 24 – Bigreadersite – REVIIEW
September 25 – CelticLady’s Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
September 25 – Ruff Drafts – AUTHOR GUEST POST
September 26 – Baroness Book Trove – SPOTLIGHT
September 27 – Socrates Book Reviews – REVIEW
September 28 – Brooke Blogs – SPOTLIGHT
September 28 – Guatemala Paula Loves to Read – REVIEW
September 29 – Ascroft, eh? – CHARACTER INTERVIEW
September 30 – Maureen’s Musings – SPOTLIGHT
October 1 – eBook Addicts – REVIEW
October 1 – fundinmental – SPOTLIGHT
October 2 – #BRVL Book Review Virginia Lee – SPOTLIGHT
October 3 – Cassidy’s Bookshelves – CHARACTER GUEST POST
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Sounds like a great book.
Thanks for sharing!
different
I love the cover art. It sets the stage for the book!
This looks like a fantastic novel. Thanks for hosting this.