Wisteria Witches Mysteries Box Set 3

by Angela Pepper

  “No. She does not,” he said emphatically. “Zara doesn’t hate you. I’m the expert on being hated by that particular redhead, and I can assure you, your sister does not hate you.”

  “Half sister,” Persephone corrected, sighing and tilting her face up to stare at the ceiling. Looking up like that helped her angry tears go back to the well of chaos inside her.

  “She doesn’t hate you,” Rhys said. “Zara is a complicated person. She had to toughen up at a young age. Her mother wasn’t the easiest person to live with, trust me, and then she had to raise a kid as a single mother. Zarabella Diamante Riddle is...” He trailed off. He didn’t need to tell Persephone the facts she already knew.

  “I’m going to tell her everything,” Persephone said. “How I only sent those photos to Krinkle because we were trying to track down whoever was giving her orders. How I’ve got no romantic interest in Theodore Bentley whatsoever. How—”

  Rhys interrupted. “No interest whatsoever?”

  She flicked her gaze down from the ceiling to her father, who’d frozen with both rust-colored eyebrows raised expectantly.

  “Ew,” she said. “Don’t be gross. Detective Bentley is almost as old as you.”

  A smile spread slowly across his face. “Almost as old as your dear old dad? I am both flattered and deeply offended.” He leaned back in his chair and unfastened the button of his brown suit jacket. “But all shall be forgiven in exchange for your bacon.”

  “Sure. You can have my bacon. I’ve lost my appetite anyway.” She looked down at her plate, was surprised to find it empty, then gave her father a dirty look.

  “Perfectly crisp,” he said, licking his lips. “But I’m still peckish. How about you? I’ve got an idea.” He rubbed his palms together. “Let’s find ourselves something juicy. There’s nothing quite like pouncing on a chubby field mouse to put the bushiness back in one’s tail.”

  She crossed her arms. “I’m not eating some malnourished, half-dead snake food you bought at the pet store for your imaginary red-tailed boa constrictor.”

  “I don’t expect you to.” He got up from the table, crossed over to the window above the sink, and pushed it open. “We’re going hunting. Shift and follow me.”

  “Don’t you dare shift! Not here, Dad. I live here. Someone will see you.”

  “Nonsense. You picked this house because it’s near the park.”

  “Near the park, yes. But we’re at least four blocks away from the trees.”

  He cleared his throat. “Young lady, when you were a teenager sneaking in and out of the house past curfew, four blocks was nothing.”

  She bit her tongue. He did have a point.

  “Go or don’t go,” he said, tapping his foot impatiently. “But I’m going, and hunting for a juicy mouse is just the start. I’ve got something else I need to do.”

  She shook her head. “Now what?”

  “According to my sources, by which I mean my own pointy ears, Zara is planning to walk to work today through the park. I’m going to pay her a very civil visit, in which explain how it only appeared that I betrayed her and left her for dead that one time.”

  “Do you mean the time you used her cat for bait?”

  “The cat,” he mused. “I forgot about that part. Not one of my finer moments.” He shrugged. “But if the plant had taken the bait, I would have happily gotten her a new cat. A better cat, even. And besides, sometimes we must make sacrifices for the greater good.”

  “Tell me about it,” she sighed. She tried not to think about all the nice things she’d given up to move to Wisteria for her new assignment.

  “So that’s the plan, then,” Rhys said cheerfully. “We’ll have a nice run in the sunshine, just the two of us, like old times. We’ll catch a few mice to get ourselves warmed up, and then make proper introductions.”

  Persephone gave her father a skeptical look. “Why would we need to get warmed up?”

  “To dodge the lightning balls. Zara doesn’t hate you, but she still hates me, remember?”

  Persephone looked at the open window. Her fingers twitched as her body, two steps ahead of her conscious mind, prepared to shift.

  She wanted to go. She had met Zara already, but not really. They were still strangers, and knowing that made her heart ache. Ever since Persephone had found out about her half-sister, the witch, she’d been longing to meet her, to finally throw her arms around her one and only sibling. Though they had different mothers, the two shared blood. They even had the same middle name: Diamante, in honor of their shared great-great-grandmother, a woman of great power.

  Persephone decided to go, to ambush her half-sister immediately. It was time. The Krinkle case had been closed. There was no more reason for secrecy. She would introduce herself to the powerful witch, and deal with whatever balls of lightning flew her way. In her shifter form, Persephone was extremely agile.

  She rose from her chair and said, “No offense, Dad, but maybe I should break the news to Zara by myself.”

  “You can certainly try to outrun your old man.” He grinned and nodded at the window. “Go on. Off you go.” He waggled his eyebrows. “I’ll give you a ten-second head start.”

  “Dad!”

  “Nine and a half seconds.” He tapped the spot on his wrist where a watch might have been. “Nine. Eight and a half. Eight...”

  Persephone Rose shifted into her animal form, flicked her bushy black tail, and leaped out the open kitchen window.

  * * *

  Thanks for reading the 9th book in the Wisteria Witches world, Wisteria Warned by Angela Pepper.

  The adventure continues... in the next book, WISHFUL WISTERIA.

  Turn the page for a note from the author, and see the back page for the full series listing.

  Sign up for Angela's newsletter at www.angelapepper.com to get an email when new Wisteria books are released!

  Author’s Note for Wisteria Warned

  Dear super-fun friend,

  I hope you were pleasantly surprised by the change in the way this part of the Wisteria saga was told. In previous author’s notes, I’ve mentioned how I prefer books that stick with one character for the whole book, and that I write books the way I’d like to read them, but then, surprise! We get chapters with the gorgons, the Moore family, and even the Permits Department gang. I wasn’t planning to visit those other characters, but then I thought... oh what the heck! The alternative was to leave out the details about who was influencing Temperance Krinkle and let Zara and Bentley believe she’d been acting on her own, and that perhaps there was a long-lost cousin who sent her a book. But then I realized what a fun opportunity it would be to “zoom out” and show the big picture of all the people in town, and how they’re affected (or unaffected) by events.

  I have always wanted to write stories about the other people in Wisteria, but I’m only one person, and it takes me a lot of hours to carefully and lovingly create the novels about the Riddle family, so that’s where my focus is. However, zipping over to visit other characters for a chapter or two is so delightful. It probably won’t happen again in the next book, because that’s a very different story, but you might see some other characters having their own chapters in future books. Or you might not. I do have plans, but, as Codex said, plans are things humans make for the gods to laugh at.

  During the writing of this book, birthday candles became a big ongoing joke. We went to my husband’s aunt’s birthday, and she had 71 candles on her cake. (Happy birthday, Phyllis!) I asked if she had a permit for all those candles, and everyone laughed, even though they hadn’t read my book. It’s just a funny idea. I know people joke about having the fire department on standby, but I don’t think I’ve heard people ask about permits. Maybe it’s a thing everyone does? Either way, you have my permission to begin asking about candle permits at any birthday gatherings. As for Phyllis’ cake, we sang the song, and it took her many puffs to blow out all the candles, which were melting into one super-candle, and yes, the smoke detector d
id go off. The birthday girl’s lovely old blue-eyed Siamese cat was not impressed, but remained snuggled next to me on the couch making funny cat faces.

  Plenty of real-life things cross into the books. I saw a man walking his dog and his rooster. So it went into the story. Characters get named after my friends’ new babies. Most of my story ideas come from seeds of things that fascinate me in real life.

  For example, there are people all over the world who swear they were taught to spell dilemma with an N, as dilemna. Clearly this is proof that people from another, nearly-identical universe must have crossed over into our universe with their wrong spelling. The more likely explanation is a typo in some textbooks, but that doesn’t make this subject any less fascinating to me. Other people share this fascination — there’s even a website about the “dilemna dilemma.”

  That spelling issue was just a short mention in this book, but other things become the basis for plots. I didn’t have a dollhouse growing up, but I always found them fascinating and a bit creepy. Perhaps if I’d had my own, I would have only fond feelings about dollhouses. When I first began writing about the Riddle family, I had an image in my head that Zoey might find a dollhouse in the attic. But then, a year ago (Wisteria Warned has been over a year in the planning), I came across an article about Frances Glessner Lee, a woman who, in the 1930s and 40s, created crime scene dioramas called the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. Several of her nutshells are still being used, to this day, to train crime scene investigators. Her attention to detail was incredible. Well!! Suddenly two ideas collided and I had the beginning of Wisteria Warned. Here’s my hat tip to Ms. Lee, who was an incredible woman who made remarkable contributions to modern forensics.

  On the other hand, sometimes I hold back my favorite things. For example, I love the word “jaunty.” I just did a search on my file that has all of the Wisteria books, and the word jaunty doesn’t appear even once. I’m sure it’s in plenty of my other books, unless I delete it whenever I see it out of fear of overusing it? (The word appears only two times in my five-book Stormy Day series.)

  FYI, in case you’re wondering, there are now 780,000 words in the Wisteria universe, across these last 9 books. Not counting any author’s notes! For comparison, the Harry Potter series is just over a million words. So, if I want to write something longer than Harry Potter, it will take a few more books! And yes, I do want to surpass a million words. I don’t know how many Wisteria Witches books there will be, or how long between releases, but as long as you keep reading, I’ll keep writing. Six of the books are available in audiobook form, with more on the way, so I’m excited to be reaching a new audience of audiophiles. And, in case you haven’t heard any of them, the audiobooks are so much fun. Hearing the narrators bring the characters to life is not the same as having them in your head, but it’s sort of like seeing the movie version, except better, because nothing’s left out. Once my narrators have caught up to my writing, you will have the option of getting future books in either ebook, print, or audiobook on release day.

  I will begin writing book ten now. I have very few notes for book ten and beyond, unlike the previous two, which had been in the outline stage for a year by the time I wrote them. Actually, the last two books were planned as three books, but some big events got moved around and combined.

  Book ten, WISHFUL WISTERIA, will be Zara's point of view.

  There will be more from the other characters in future stories. I’ll try to label the blurbs clearly so you can understand which character the books focus on, and where things fit in the timeline. My plan is to keep moving forward in time from now on without jumping back too much. I’ve been writing this series for a few years, and yet less than six months of story time has passed between the first and ninth book. Now things will move forward more rapidly. I mean... I say this now, but who knows? Things happen. Creativity strikes.

  You may have noticed Wisteria Warned had a feeling of things being wrapped up. We found out Corvin’s a hell hound (that was a long time coming!), Kathy revealed herself to her coworkers as a sprite (she’s Karl Kormac’s cousin), Chessa got closure, Zoey now has a relationship with her dad, Zara has met the final local coven member and can be a part of that group (careful what you wish for, Zara!), and it turns out Dr. Ankh’s vampire serum is good for repairing Grampa Don’s brainweevil damage. Plus now we know why it seemed that Winona Vander Zalm tried to kill Zara via sleeptoasting back in book one. It was Mahra, messing with the timeline all along! And now that’s all wrapped up. (For now.) If Wisteria were a TV series, book 9 would represent the second-to-last episode of Season One. Having the Moore family move away does make it feel like an ending of sorts. It made me sad, but also happy for them. They will have a great time in London without us. London is fun for supernaturals.

  Book 10 will be a season closer, but also the start of new things. That’s all I can say for now, other than there will be at least one new family member getting involved. If you've just read chapter 37 of this book (I can safely assume you have!), you already know who it is.

  No spoilers about Bentley and Zara. But that’s going to be fun, too.

  The end of this book finds me on a positive page in the story of my own life. So positive that when I reviewed the author’s note from the previous book, I was confused about which bothersome relationship issue I was making reference to. Then I remembered what the kerfuffle had been, and I had to laugh. Time really does wash away the details of those minor heartbreaks. These things need not linger as pain (or ghosts) for us to hold onto the lessons we’ve learned. I’m happy to say things in my life are currently harmonious. My only source of distress is that I’m painting the bricks surrounding my wood stove, and the gritty mortar sucks up so much paint. I’ve done three coats of primer—good quality primer!—and I’m still not ready for the final paint color. Ah, to have such good fortune for this to be my current source of frustration.

  I am grateful for my troubles, for I’d rather have them than anyone else’s.

  And I’m grateful for the opportunity to tell these fun stories. Thanks for your support, and I wish you well!

  Love, Angela

  Series Reading Order

  Wisteria Witches:

  New to Wisteria? You can start reading with any book, but you may enjoy them best in the order they were released. Some of the books are written from Zara Riddle's point of view and some are from Aunt Zinnia's.

  This is the publication date and suggested reading order:

  Wisteria Witches Mysteries - available in ebook and audiobook

  #1 - Wisteria Witches

  #2 - Wicked Wisteria

  #3 - Wisteria Wonders

  #4 - Watchful Wisteria

  #5 - Wisteria Wyverns

  #6 - Wolves of Wisteria

  #7 - Wisteria Wrinkle

  #8 - Wardens of Wisteria

  #9 - Wisteria Warned

  #10 - Wishful Wisteria

  #11 - Wisteria Woven

  ... & other titles to be announced!

  Stormy Day Mysteries - available in ebook and audiobook

  #1 - Death of a Dapper Snowman

  #2 - Death of a Crafty Knitter

  #3 - Death of a Batty Genius

  #4 - Death of a Modern King

  #5 - Death of a Double Dipper

  Restless Spirits - available in ebook and audiobook

  #1 - Date with a Ghost

  #2 - Interview with a Ghost

  #3 - Dancing with a Ghost

  Eli Carter & the Ghost Hackers - available in ebook and audiobook

  #1 - The Cat Who Went Bump in the Night

  #2 - The Ghost Who Wasn't There

  #3 - The Dog Who Barked Fire

  For Angela's news, visit www.angelapepper.com

  Follow Angela Pepper on Facebook for sneak peeks, wacky humor, and updates: www.facebook.com/angelapepperauthor/

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