Annette Blair – Cloaked in Malice

The fifth book in the Vintage Magic Mystery series, published July 3, 2012.
Genre: paranormal cozy mystery.



The latest "intriguing" Vintage Magic mystery from national bestselling author Annette Blair.

There's nothing boutique owner Maddie Cutler loves more than fabulous vintage clothes, but the visions she gets from them are starting to wear her down. Even so, when a beautifully dressed girl comes to Vintage Magic in search of her past, Maddie isn’t about to turn her away, especially since she bears a striking resemblance to her good friend Dolly Sweet. When Maddie touches Paisley Skye’s exquisitely crafted child’s cloak, the vision she receives is of the ugliest sort: a decades-old case of kidnapping and murder. To give herself more time to investigate, Maddie enlists the help of her FBI Agent boyfriend Nick and takes Paisley into her home. But when Dolly suddenly skips town, Maddie realizes that uncovering the folds of Paisley's past will reveal more than one vintage crime...


Madeira “Maddie” Cutler is getting ready for the August sale in her vintage clothing shop, when a young girl enters. She is dressed very oldfashioned, and has come to Maddie for advice on some children’s clothes she has with her. Paisley Skye has a very strange story to tell. She was raised on a farm, and was not allowed to go behind the fence. She was homeschooled, and everything necessary for daily life was grown on the farm. She does not believe the people she called Mam and Pap where her parents, they never showed her any affection. She has no real memory of her past either. And so she hopes that Maddie can tell her more about the clothes she found, hidden in a locked closet.
When touching the child’s cloak, Maddie gets plunged into a vision at once, a bad one. A man in a tuxedo, shot, and bleeding in the snow. A woman dragged into a car, calling out a name, and another man with the child in his arms, taking her with him. A baby is crying in the background, and there is a church, and other well dressed people running and driving away. Is Maddie witnessing a murder / kidnapping? And is the child wearing the cloak Paisley?

Dante, Maddie’s live in ghost, points out that Paisley is the spitting image of his lady love Dolly in her youth. And when Dolly, who is about to celebrate her 104th birthday in a few days, and her daughter-in-law Ethel enter the shop, they see the same thing. The strange thing is that Dolly disappears the next day, apparently she has taken a plane to Paris! Luckily she was so smart as to hire a nurse-companion for the trip, but Ethel is sick with worry.

Maddie wants to find out more about what happened to Paisley, and needs to be able to touch the other clothes. And so she asks Paisley to stay with her, and tell her more of what she does know. Maddie’s boyfriend Nick is an FBI-agent on leave at the moment, and he is willing to help find out who Paisley is. She just knows those people were not her parents, and her name just has to be phoney. But to find answers, they will have to visit the island the farm is on, something Paisley really is not looking forward to. But on the farm, all they find are more questions. And why did Dolly race of to Paris?


One of the strangest stories I have ever read are told in this book. It is so over the top, so bizarre, that I don’t even know if I really liked it. At least I never guessed the truth before it was revealed. Of course, I loved visiting with Maddie and Eve and Nick and Werner again. And of course her lecturing father and Aunt Fiona (Fee). They are all such great characters. The jealousy between Nick and Werner is still there, though a bit toned down. And Maddie really was surprised but loved it when Nick called her his lifemate to his colleagues. Maddie is in no rush to get married though, which is a refreshing change as well.
Of course clothes, vintage clothes and designers play a big part in this series, and provide the necessary clues to Maddie.

Paisley was a strange character. For grown up on a secluded farm all her life, without books or television, but with schoolbooks a plenty, she learned a lot. Her Pap also taught her how to drive their old pick up truck, but for the rest, she is ignorant of the world. She did not even know their farm was on an island! And still, she holds herself well, even though she sometimes shows childish behaviour. Maddie promises to throw her a party so she will be able to meet some young men and start dating.
I do wonder if we will meet Paisley again in the next books.

In the back of the book, as usual, there are some tips about vintage purses. So if you like purses, you might want to check out this nice paranormal cozy mystery series.

7 stars.

© 2012 Reviews by Aurian