Charms and chocolate chips

Katie Lightfoot spends her days baking spiced treats at Honeybee Bakery and her free hours volunteering with a local conservation group. Between the two, she has little time for her boyfriend, Declan McCarthy, who is a firefighter, and even less for learning what it means to be a witch.

Then a fellow conservation volunteer turns up dead. Katie's magical senses tell her the death was no ordinary one, and she is drawn into a murder case for the second time (or more, as the story hints she has been here before).

Her instincts prove right when members of her coven become targets too. The danger now reaches the people closest to her, and the threat looks to be dark magic of a serious kind.

Katie has put off her destiny, but a new recipe will not solve this. She has to accept her powers and learn to use them fast, or she risks being overwhelmed by the force behind the killings.

This is a cozy paranormal mystery with a bakery setting, an amateur sleuth and a light romantic thread. The tone leans warm and food-minded, with a witchy menace underneath the sweets.