A Spell for Trouble

A Spell for Trouble is the first book in Esme Addison's Enchanted Bay Mystery series, published in 2020 and set in the seaside town of Bellamy Bay, North Carolina.

Alex Daniels is twenty-eight and burned out from a high-pressure job in New York when her father's death frees her to return to the town she has not seen in more than twenty years — a place he forbade her to visit while he was alive. She takes an impulsive retail job at Botanika, her family's herbal apothecary, and finds that the Daniels women are the subject of persistent town gossip: they are said to be magical healers descended from mermaids.

When her aunt Lidia is arrested for the murder of a Botanika customer, Alex sets out to clear her name. Her investigation opens up the circumstances of her own mother's death and a long-running feud between two families, and forces her to take the family's water magic more seriously than she wants to. The series blends cozy mystery with light paranormal fantasy.