zondag 15 september 2013

Heather Webber – Perfectly Matched

The fourth book in the Lucy Valentine series, published May 15, 2012.
Genre: psychic cozy mystery
Cover: lovely

Perfectly Matched photo n403385_zps35d793e6.jpg

The heat is on...
When Boston psychic Lucy Valentine finds herself involved with a group of eccentric mediums trying to fine tune their abilities, she is convinced a rare spring heat wave has flushed all the local crazies out of hiding. Adding to her theory is her newest client in the Lost Loves division of Valentine, Inc., her family's lucrative matchmaking firm. He's an animal whisperer who hires Lucy to locate his soul mate - because his cat told him so. Finding his purrfect match, however, isn't as easy as it seems.
But craziest of all is the Beantown Burner, a serial arsonist who is targeting private eye Sam Donahue, brother of Lucy's boyfriend, Sean. With the help of her kooky psychic group, Lucy must tap into hidden abilities to catch the firebug before the fires turn deadly. She never expected to discover that the motive behind the flames hits a little too close to home... and dangerously close to her heart.


With the help of Orlinda Batista, Lucy Valentine is trying to get control of her psychic powers, and develop more of them. So far, is it a bust though, and the other fledgling psychics under Orlinda’s wings are trying to get her kicked out. As an exercise for them, Orlinda has brought with her the teddy bear of a young girl who has been missing for six years. All of them have seen something of what happened, and Orlinda has confirmed it as truth, but Lucy doesn’t get anything. Add to that a Boston heat wave and defect air-conditioning, and tempers are running high.
Preston Bailey, the reporter and Lucy’s new friend, is also there to report on their progress. Her career is coming along nicely thanks to the human interest articles she is writing on Lucy’s Lost Love cases. But these psychics, or as she calls them, the Diviner Whiners, are getting on her nerves. She is also supposed to follow them all at work one day, and today is dr. Paul’s day.

While Orlinda is leaving Lucy’s office, she runs into Lucy’s new client, and they do know each other. Jeremy Cross is a total bad boy from the looks of him, and Lucy’s receptionist, Suz, is totally under his spell. Jeremy is a former student of Orlinda as well.
Apparently, Jeremy is an animal communicator, and his cat Ebbie has told him to go to Lucy and have her find his soul mate. While Sean is distracting Lucy, Jeremy leaves the offices, but he leaves Lucy with Ebbie… and without a way to contact Jeremy.

There is an arsonist in Boston, and so far, all his targets have been familiair to Sean, and his adopted brother Sean Donahue. Why is someone after Sam? Who is hating him so much? And will Sean be the next target? The moment Lucy’s father hears about this, he kicks Sean out of his million dollar apartment, as he does not want it to be the arsonist’ next target. Leaving Sean only one place to go: Lucy’s tiny cottage. This makes Lucy’s grandmother Dottie very happy, as she wants to have great grand children tomorrow if possible, and she has been haunting Lucy and Sean about it for weeks now. Giving them stuff, dropping totally unsubtle hints, and doing everything she can, short of locking them naked in a bedroom together.

So now Lucy has to find an arsonist to keep her boyfriend safe, a missing girl named Bethany, and a soulmate for a dangerous man who does not want to answer her questions of help in any way.

To top it all, a mugger snatches Lucy’s bag, she has visions or nightmares about the arsonist, and Preston claims Dr. Paul is a killer. And something is very wrong with Preston, but she does not want to acknowledge it. Nor does she want to alert her boyfriend, who happens to be Lucy’s halfbrother.


The mystery part took me completely by surprise as I was focuses on another guilty looking party. I was so glad when the mystery around Bethany was solved, and I really do wonder what would happen in real life to someone who did that. The personal life part of Lucy and Sean and all her friends was sweet and good and fun to find out. I really like all the characters, main and secondary, in this series. And I enjoy witnessing them finding happiness.
Lucy is a bit weirded out by her parents new relationship though, and Dottie sure is a grandmother to reckon with. She is spunky and fashionable and meddling and totally loveable.

Lucy is a good person, and she does her best to solve the cases she is working on for the police, even though they sometimes break her heart. It feels good to be able to give closure to a grieving family. Still, she is human and I enjoyed the little revenge she took on Annie Hendrix. I love how she takes in injured animals because her best friend, and vet, asks her. Like Grendel, her three legged cat who has abandonment issues, and the one eyed hamster. And now she just takes in Ebbie.

I do hope Heather Webber will write many more books in this series. The mystery parts are just so very well written, they keep me glued to the pages, but it are the characters who make me love the books.

10 stars.



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© 2013 Reviews by Aurian

6 opmerkingen:

  1. Aw glad you enjoyed it! She sounds like a heroine I would really like taking in all the injured animals. Not loving the cover though. I probably would have skipped right over it but sounds like I really would have missed out!

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    1. I love this series, and her writing style just fits me perfectly.

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  2. wow 10? Nice! I don't know if I would have read it with such a cover but now I'll have too with this great review!

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