Zara Riddle is used to being woken up in the middle of the night by magical creatures. Being a witch is incredibly fun, but it does have a few drawbacks. Zara's powers make her appealing to the recently deceased, who are always showing up seeking her help. This witch is a real ghost magnet!
When Zara's resident telepathic wyvern wakes her up to announce there's a new ghost in the house, Zara is anything but surprised. She greets the new spirit, locates the crime scene, and notifies the authorities. All before the sun comes up. Zara's work is done. After all, the town's detective should be able to solve this homicide without her.
The detective, Theodore Bentley, has other ideas. He knows about Wisteria's secrets, but he's not the stubborn type who insists on doing everything himself. Why chase down a killer alone when you can have a powerful witch as a partner? He invites Zara to join him on the investigation. Zara accepts, because why not? She'll rest easier when the case is solved. Plus two heads are better than one, even if one of them is a mere human.
As the crime-fighting duo dig deeper into the town's secrets, both the human detective and the witch are shocked to discover a killer in their midst. When they underestimate the killer's powers, the tables are turned. In a heartbeat,everything changes.
Zara Riddle can only watch helplessly as someone she cares about saves the witch's life by sacrificing their own.
WARDENS OF WISTERIA is book 1 of a new mini-series set in Angela Pepper's wickedly wild world of Wisteria Witches. If you're new to the series, you can start here if you'd like! This book is told from the point of view of Zara Riddle.
USA Today Bestselling author Angela Pepper lives with her family in the rainy Pacific Northwest, surrounded by spoiled kitties, deer, raccoons, and the biggest woodpeckers you've ever seen.
Wardens of Wisteria by Angela Paper and narrated by Tiffany Williams is an audible book I requested and the review is voluntary. Fantastic doesn't come close to describe these books! This book really is the best! Our red headed witch learns more about the secrets and creatures of the town. She has to tell her daughter who her daughter's father is and what he is! She also teams up with the detective to solve a murder! Great clues, characters, emotions, humor, clever dialogue, unpredictable plot, and just a lot of fun! These books are so witty and humorous yet always have a good mystery and emotional connection between characters. Great new characters too! The narration is off the charts! Wonderful! She performs comedy so well along with the rest of the book!
I didn't enjoy it as much as the other books. I am also not sure how I feel about the thing that happened with Bentley. I was very excited with Zara and Bentley 's slow burn relationship and I am not sure if I like the inclusion of that particular element in the story, just when things were picking up between the two of them.
2020 bk 401. Zara has a wyvern in the house now that her adventures with her mother have come to a conclusion. It's just she and her daughter now that her mother has talked her aunt Zinnia into a world tour, oh and the ghosts, I forget the ghosts that seek her out. This time it is a ghost that doesn't believe that it is dead - and that it has lost its head. And to further confuse things, Detective Bentley (now turned into a vampire by Zara's mother) has declared that he is now also Zara's body guard. Between all this and her teenage daughter getting a job at a museum, what is a mother/librarian to do. Seek out the answers of course, that is what librarian's do.
This is Wardens Of Wisteria, book 8 of Angela Pepper’s Wisteria Witches series. I really love the Riddle women, especially Zara! She seems to get herself into all kinds of crazy trouble, and, more likely than not, they involve all sorts of magical creatures. Who else would get woken up by a ghost and dragged into the middle of a crime scene? It’s a super fun and crazy interesting and entertaining series! I am sure you will love it too!!
I felt bad for Zara in this book when she was forced to tell Zoey who her father was. I love the wyvern that now lives in the house and how much chaos he caused. I don’t know how to feel about Bentley. Her mother turned him into a vampire and basically ordered him to protect Zara. I love that they team up to solve the latest mystery of the poor man who lost his head.
Love this community and characters. The writer is great with drawing this reader in via Zara’s wacky sense of humor, her relationship with her daughter and all her new and interesting discoveries, however this book seemed really disjointed. There were at least two instances in the book where the writer recapped unnecessarily within the story. It felt like either the writer had left the story for long periods of time or forgot that we readers don’t need a recap within the story because we just read it all. Overall the story was really good. The ending was perfect.
This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.
This is the 8th book in the Wisteries Witch Mysteries. After the two books about Zinnia and her officemates, it is wonderful to have the spotlight back on Zara, Zoey and Detective Bentley. Although it’s a new trilogy, I highly suggest reading at least the 6 Wisteria Witch Mystery books and the 2 City Hall books as characters from that series play a significant role in the story. After Wisteria Wyverns, Detective Bentley has been made aware of the magical nature of Wisteria. A murder occurs and he wants our favorite librarian witch on the case. How much easier could it be to solve a murder than to ask the victim? Spoiler Alert: It’s not that easy. It’s a buddy cop story with an added degree of flirtation and interrogation as they’re both trying to figure out the ramifications of the revelations and relationship quirks from Wisteria Wyverns.
The B story is all Zara and Zoey. These two have enjoyed a close mother / daughter relationship but this gets strained as Zoey wants to know about her father. After Wyverns, Zara isn’t sure how much she wants to or even can tell her. This was my favorite part of the book and I look forward to seeing how this plays out in future books.
This book was an easy to listen to delight and furthers the mythology of the series as well as tying together the previous volumes. The wit, warmth and weirdness of Wisteria that you know and love is in full force.
What can I say about Tiffany Williams narration except that she is exceptional at bringing characters to life through voice, tone, and the occasional accent. She can switch back and forth between a 32 year old woman, 16 year old pouting and a psychic wyvern with a Transylvanian accent on the fly and make it look easy. She is a treasure.
I enjoyed this book and eagerly anticipate future adventures of the Riddle women.
(I'm writing this review after the fact, so I'll try to keep my comments solely to this book and not the series.)
One thing that I love about this book is how much it balanced building Wisteria and the Riddles' worlds with solving the murder mystery. We find out a lot in this installment, including . We see how Zara's relationship with Bentley is growing and changing, and I'm very interested to see where it goes after this book. We also get a little more of Zara in conflict with Zoey, which we haven't had a lot of in this series (at least, not to this degree). There are a lot of things that happen in this book that makes this one of the most relatable books in the series for me, all magic aside.
I do miss some of our old favorites; it feels like Zirconia and Zinnia are on vacation forever by the end of this book, and I need my daily dose of Flamingo Frank. Not disappointed by the lack of Chet, though.
One thing I noticed: the beauty of Wisteria is that it's so naturally kooky that a supernatural character reveal feels like a logical step instead of a dramatic twist. I think that's one reason why I truly enjoy this series.
I wasn't expecting the ending, but I'm not surprised by this one--just how it played out. I'm normally not good at guessing endings, but I found myself thinking that it would be the character who it turned out to be.
Not my favorite in the series, but it was nice to return to Zara World.
My actual rating is 3.5 stars, but I rounded up. Though it says you can start at this point in the Wisteria books if you like in the book's description, I don't advise it, since there were several points where I felt like someone who has walked in half way through a conversation, and is missing vital pieces of information required to completely understand who or what is being discussed. Another issue I have is that magic is meant to drain energy reserves, yet the main character uses it even for silly little things like brushing crumbs off the table, or straightening the blankets after getting out of bed, which I found irritating, since it felt like she was doing it just to show off that she could; just because you can use magic to do almost everything, doesn't mean you should, especially when you already know your magic reserves are low at the moment. Also, why is the 33 year old main character displaying less maturity than her tenage daughter? I get that the teen is meant to be more mature than most kids her age, and that's fine. But it would be nice if her Mother displayed a bit of maturity too. I enjoyed the book enough that I want to read the others in the series - though I plan on making sure to read the rest in chronological order - but so far I'm liking the author's Stormy Day mystery series better.
Another winner. A really terrific plot even if the actual culprit was obvious from the first meeting. Love the way the characters are developing in their magic and the relationship ties between them. When she is woken by the news that a ghost is downstairs, she finds a ghost that cannot communicate but does seem to have a strange glow around his neck. She finds that the glow is due to the fact that the dead man had been decapitated. Now working with her mother's favourite detective they start looking into the life of the dead man. But finding the weapon used is much harder. More revelations as to who is a magical being follows as does her daughter's questions about who her father is. What is Bentley wearing around his neck? Will they find and stop the killer? Will she tell Zoe about her father? What price will be paid and by whom?
3.5 - I have mixed feelings about this one. It's far better than both of the Zinnia books before it, and the first half is a solid four stars. The second half, however, isn't nearly as good. There's a lot of rehashing things - even events only a chapter or two apart - the killer was fairly obvious straight away. Though his entire motivation was blah blah-ed away, which really sucked and took a lot of the excitement out of the final reveal. The time jump *sucked*. Characters like Charlize were brought back only for a last-minute cameo, and I'm not sure how I feel about the twist with Bentley. I still enjoyed the series, even though Zara was an awful parent in this one, but I'm really hoping the next one is better pulled together. The second half of this one was quite sloppy and slow, a real bummer for a book that had been captivating until then.
I received this book in exchange for an honest review.
I really enjoyed this installment. Some of my favorite books are ambling series that go where they’re going with no obvious endpoint in sight. I love living another life one book at a time. The Wisteria series does this for me.
I like the connections Zed is making in Wisteria. It’s all very natural and I appreciate the different aspects of her life, home, community, and work all being represented. There were two very interesting twists right at the end that have me impatient for the next book.
Finally, I love reading the author’s note at the end of each book. Angela Pepper and I are two very different people (sugar free! What!?) but I appreciate learning more about the human behind the book.
I love reading Angela Pepper books. She has a wonderful sense of humor, is witty, and interesting. I have read 8 of her books so far and I have enjoyed all of them. I like that she didn't swear in her books, her spelling is on point,and I don't feel like I'm having to make corrections when I'm reading her books. So many authors out there today don't have a good publishing company to correct spelling or grammatical errors and as a word nerd, this bothers me intensely. Her characters are easy to love and easy to connect with. I'm looking forward to reading the next books to find out what Zara, Zinnia, and Zoey are up to. Thank Angela, for being the amazing writer you are!
I feel like I missed a book here, because Zinnia and Zirconia are on vacation? The beginning feels like a time jump, but it isn’t.
I like the narrator better than City Hall, but I like the story less. I do not like that this narrator changed Carrot’s voice (compared to when we first meet her in City Hall)
Where is Frank Wonder? 😭 And Kathy 😭 Also, I find it odd that Chet isn’t in this. I know they’re not a thing but like how can he be a main character in the first 5, but not even be in 6?
AND NOT A FAN OF WHAT HAPPENED TO BENTLEY 😭😭😭
I listened to these 8 on a box set of audiobooks and I’m upset that the remaining 6+? books are not in a set and I would have to get them all separately 😭
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Wardens of Wisteria takes us back to Zara’s point of view, and when a new ghost wanders into the house before dawn, Zara prepares herself for another possession. But this ghost is different. He doesn’t try to inhabit Zara; in fact, after departing her house, he appears to go about his morning routine. He appears to not realize he is dead. And what’s wrong with Bentley? All of a sudden he’s ok with Zara tagging along to crime scenes and inserting herself into investigations? Life in Wisteria is always a little weird, but this is weird, even by Wisteria standards. And Zara Riddle is here for it. Another brilliant plot. Another harrowing encounter. And another chance to follow our favorite Wisteria Witch into the fray.
The Wardens of Wisteria is book 8 in the fabulous Wisteria Witches series. It is not necessary to have read other books but there are references to previous events. Zara Riddle finds herself right in the middle of a murder investigation when a ghost arrives in her house. This is a great blend of murder, magic and humour which builds to a brilliant ending. As always Angela Pepper has created wonderful characters, both human and magical, with flaws and traits that make them believable and not everything is sweetness and light in their world. This is a great read and I definitely recommend it. I received an advanced copy of this book and this is my honest and voluntary review.
Audiobook review: Crazy trouble, wacky humor, magical creatures, quirky characters, ghosts, and witches star in this funny magical mystery adventure. There is some rehashing of events covered in the story that, probably should have been left out. Zara also displayed less maturity than her teenage daughter which is somewhat disappointing. But, I liked the flaws that Ms. Pepper adds to her characters to make them seem more real. The storyline is interesting and entertaining with the witty banter and likable characters. The narrator did a great job! I received a free copy of this audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
So, after the way that the previous book ended, I have been dying to know what's going on with Zara's life and I wasn't disappointed with what I found in this book.
Zara's usual sense of humour shines through the whole book, and it makes even the direst of the moments kind of funny. So even when there is a decapitated man and a killer in the loose you'll find yourself smiling most of the time.
And that ending! OMG! Unexpected, but absolutely logical and perfectly shadowed twist.
And, as usual, Tiffany Williams does a superb job with the narration.
But now, I'm back to sit and wait for the next book :P
I've missed Zara and her Wisteria buddies. As a witch Zara has the ability to be possessed by ghosts, to solve their murder. However, things are different this time and she needs Bentley's help. Solving a murder while trying to be a good witch and a good mother has her a little overwhelmed. There's a bit of crossover with Zinnia's books, and it's fun to make the connections but unnecessary to read first. The characters are sassy, tricky, and supernatural. Pretty sure there will be more from Wisteria. I received an early copy, my review given voluntarily.
I am thoroughly enjoying Zara crazy and fun antics. I have always enjoyed fantasy books. I have always enjoyed escaping to the world of witches, shapeshifters and other mythical creatures. I like how Angela has made them look like normal people and all of a sudden they are not. I like also how she ends her books at times with a cliffhanger, I have to get the next book. I am up to date and can hardly wait for her next book. I am so glad I found this series and other series she has done. Thank you.
I enjoyed reading this latest book in the Wisteria series from Angela Pepper. In this story you’ll find out a little bit more about Zoe’s pedigree (Zara’s daughter)! And you will see how Zara and her detective friend help a headless gost find peace by solving his mysterious murder and how Zara comes to know a few new witches along the way...
I loved this book (and all the rest of the Wisteria books) because Angela’s characters are so well written and so fun it almost feels like you know them yourself and the adventures they go on and how they cope with it all is just to funny and amazing at the same time! So this one as all the rest of the books, I couldn’t put it down until I finished reading it! And what an ending! As always Angela has written yet an other funny mystical Riddler adventure! I say may there come many many more!
Zara is woken one day by a ghost in the house and this ghost isn't communicating with her. He leads her to his apartment and what she finds is horrific. Someone decapitated this man, and now Zara must help Bentley find the killer. Zara faces a lot in this book, with her magic not working right because of a spell she used to keep ghost from possessing her to a whole list of suspects to go thru she is overwhelmed. The ending will send you for a loop.
Wardens of Wisteria by Angela Pepper is a great addition to the Wisteria Witches Mysteries. I love the writing style of the author with her great details and vivid imagery, the endearing characters, and quirky habits of Zara and her wyvern. Tiffany Williams is magical at bringing the characters to life. She adds the right emotions, and I know exactly who is speaking. I requested this review copy audiobook and have voluntarily written this review. I will most definitely listen to more books by this author and narrator. I love this series.
What a great reading experience. The characters are great, love Zara and Zoey can cannot wait to find out what powers Zoey will develop. Of course Ribbon’s takes the cake (literally), he is funny and sarcastic but what else would you expect from a wyvern. Looking forward to seeing how Bentley figures into future stories. You will laugh out loud while reading this book, the situations Zara finds herself in are totally awesome. Cannot wait for the next book in the series.
Another wonderful reading journey. Another sleepless night for me to go on that journey without having to stop for breaks (except comfort ones) and to reach the end by getting up for breakfast having thoroughly enjoyed the ride through Angela's extremely fertile imagination. I now need the next book to get me through tonight, which is already downloading. Keep safe.
OMG... Totally engaging! Another well-written story full of mystery and engrossing characters. Bentley! What was on Zara's mind with that wish?! Who do the two candles represent?! Why was Zara completely clueless about how inappropriate her new acquaintance was?! Will her good sense grow with her abilities?! How sinister is Codex?! Why is Aunt Zinnia keeping so many secrets? What is Ribbons up to? Can/should Zara reverse what she did? All this and more will keep me intrigued with this increasingly fascinating series!
Wardens of Wisteria (Wisteria Witches #8) was a great read by Angela Pepper. Zara Riddle’s powers as a witch, make her appealing to people who recently died. Their ghost shows up to get her help. Detective Theodore Bentley get’s Zara’s help in solving the newest homicide. He knows about the secrets of the supernatural and asks Zara for help with his case. I really enjoyed reading Zara and Theodore searching for the killer and solving the newest crime. I cant wait to read more by the author.
This is another winner. I love her witch series with zara and zinnia and family. They are zanny witches and daughter is a red fox. The storylines are great and the characters are wonderful strange people, and animals, and paranormal. I highly recommend all her books. Diana Romano
I just love the cozy familiar feelings I have when I am reading an Angela Pepper book. Just light fun reading. I feel like Ms. Pepper and her characters are old friends. I wish I could text Ms. Pepper and go for a hike with her in her neighborhood. We went to Canada for vacation in 2017 and the places she describes feel like places I have been.
...in one of my favorite series. I've enjoyed Zinnia's stories, but I had missed Zara and Zoey, and my ornery buddy, Ribbons. I've already pre-existing the next entry! I'm so glad it will be out next month!! I do miss them being available on Kindle Unlimited, though!