Love, Lies, And Hocus Pocus A Study In Mischief E-Book

Lydia Sherrer

• Herausgeber: Chenoweth Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: A Lily Singer Adventures Novella
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 117

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Wizards are born, witches are made, and they mix about as well as oil and water. So when an introverted wizard and a troublemaking witch cross paths, what could possibly go wrong?
Lily Singer is a conscientious librarian who just wants to practice her wizardry and be left alone. Sebastian Blackwell is a ne’er-do-well witch for hire who enjoys getting under peoples’ skin but always gets the job done in the end. When circumstance forces them to band together against a common enemy, there’s no telling how the dice will fall.
A prequel to the Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus series, this meeting of opposites—and the mischief that follows—is a roller coaster of laughs and life lessons. The only question left is, what's a girl to do when she finds out her arch rival isn't so bad after all?

With 2000+ five star ratings on Amazon and Goodreads and over a quarter million copies downloaded, the Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus urban fantasy series full of adventure and snarky humor is guaranteed to cause loud snorts of laughter, tea cravings, and sleep loss. Don't start reading at night or you'll never go to bed! Great for fans of urban fantasy from Harry Potter to Harry Dresden.

--
Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Universe Books:

LILY SINGER ADVENTURE SERIES
Beginnings (#1)
Revelations (#2)
A Study In Mischief (#2.5) - FREE novella, can be read as a standalone
Allies (#3)
Legends (#4)
Cat Magic (#4.5) - novella, can be read as a standalone
Betrayal (#5)
Identity (#6)
Kindred (#7)

DARK ROADS TRILOGY
Accidental Wtich (#1)
(#2 and #3 TBA)

Leseprobe

Love, Lies, And Hocus Pocus: A Study In Mischief

A Lily Singer Adventures Novella

Lydia Sherrer

A Note From the Author

Don’t you love backstory? I sure do, especially “how they met” tales. For fans of the Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus universe books, this is a fun little side adventure that can be read at any point during the Lily Singer Adventures series, though it happens chronologically after the second book (Revelations), and has flashbacks to before the first book (Beginnings).

For new readers, welcome! I hope you enjoy this cute little standalone. Once you are done with this novella, there is a whole universe of snarky and magical adventures waiting for you to indulge in, so be sure to check it out starting with Book 1 - Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus: Beginnings.

Happy Reading!

Contents

1. Chapter One

2. Chapter Two

3. Chapter Three

4. Chapter Four

Epilogue

Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus: Beginnings

Afterword

Also by Lydia Sherrer

About the Author

Chapter One

A Grand Kerfuffle

Lily Singer—archivist, wizard, and unapologetic bibliophile—was obsessive about keeping her environment in good order. She couldn’t stand for things to be dirty or out of place. It was rather ironic, then, that she hated cleaning. 

Organizing, filing, and straightening were fine—she enjoyed bringing order out of chaos. But anything involving the removal of filth, especially decaying food, was disgusting. That didn’t stop her from doing it, of course, but it transformed what could have been a satisfying chore into a thorn in her side.

So it was with mixed feelings that she knelt in the middle of her friend’s living room floor, hands sheathed in latex gloves. The gloves were necessary, considering the six-inch drift of trash she was picking through—everything from food wrappers, old mail, cans, bottles, dirty laundry, shriveled apple cores, moldy banana peels, to other, less identifiable, items.

It was a shame real magic wasn’t as convenient as the ridiculous drivel that pop culture peddled in books and movies. There was no bibbidi-bobbidi-boo, no illogical waving of a wand to make things start cleaning themselves. No, magic was a powerful but dangerous tool, best understood as science that the mundanes hadn’t figured out how to explain yet. For simple things like cleaning, it was best to use elbow grease, lest you accidentally set your house on fire.

Her friend Sebastian Blackwell was a witch and extremely good at getting things done—at least, things he wanted done. He was notoriously apathetic when it came to any task he deemed unexciting. And cleaning was about the most unexciting activity imaginable.

Considering the fact that Sebastian spent most of his time making deals with fairies, having mad adventures, and charming the ladies in the process, his view was understandable. Fortunately, he wasn’t a wizard himself and so born with magical abilities like Lily. Otherwise, he might have attempted to "spell away" the mess and ended up translocating his apartment walls instead. Since he was just a mundane, though, and had to work through artifacts and deals with magical folk to get things done, he’d obviously decided that ignoring the mess was the best solution. Perhaps he could have bribed his fae friends to make a dent in it—they preferred rum, she’d been told—but no doubt he would claim such a deal was a waste of good alcohol.

Things had finally come to a head when he’d gotten sick with food poisoning and needed Lily to play nursemaid for a few days. After having to wade through the mess to reach his bedroom, she’d made him promise, on pain of being eternally cut off from her supply of homemade cheese scones, that he would help her clean his apartment as soon as he’d recovered. Lily hadn’t felt the least bit guilty about taking advantage of him in his vulnerable state, since she was certain his untidy lifestyle had caused it in the first place.

“Come on, Lil. Have mercy. Do I really have to do this?” Sebastian asked plaintively from the kitchen. He was standing, scrub brush in one hand, dish soap in the other, staring at The Bog of Eternal Stench—otherwise known as his kitchen sink.

“If you weren’t such an inattentive slob, you wouldn’t be in this predicament in the first place,” Lily said, grimacing and turning her head away in disgust as she gingerly placed a mostly empty, molding carton of milk in her trash bag. “When was the last time you cleaned this place, anyway? Before the fall of Rome?”

“Hey, I like my apartment the way it is,” he protested. “I know where everything is—”

“Except the medicine and chicken broth,” Lily pointed out.

“—and I save massive amounts of my valuable time by not obsessing over every speck of dust.”

“Except when you get food poisoning from your own cooking and spend two days being sick in the bathroom.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have tried to make that bacon donut burger,” he muttered to himself.

“Possibly the most unhealthy excuse for a meal I’ve ever heard of. It’s a wonder you haven’t had a heart attack.”

“For the love of catnip,” came an annoyed meow from the direction of the bookcase, “can’t you two get along for one minute without bickering? You’re as bad as an old married couple.” Perched on the highest shelf beside an untidy pile of comic books sat a long-haired gray cat with white-tipped nose, chin, paws, and tail.

Sir Edgar Allan Kipling—magical talking cat extraordinaire—had taken refuge in the place known to cats simply as “Up.” He’d chosen this strategic position in anticipation, no doubt, of that monster which usually accompanied Lily’s bouts of cleaning frenzy: the vacuum. It was a rivalry that stretched back into the ages, and, despite his newfound “human” understanding, Sir Kipling seemed to consider himself duty-bound to maintain it. Though, judging by their slow progress so far, it would be several days still before that particular device came into play.

“If I didn’t know any better,” the sardonic feline continued, “I’d have thought you two were sworn enemies.”

“Some days I wonder,” Lily muttered, though an upward twitch of her lips belied her words.

“Hey, what did he say?” Sebastian asked, sticking his head into the living room with a puzzled look on his face.

His puzzlement was expected, since Sir Kipling didn’t actually talk, not in English anyway. In one of Lily and Sebastian’s many adventures together, her then-normal feline had stuck his nose where it didn’t belong one too many times and ended up being blessed—or cursed, depending on which day you asked him—by an ancient and powerful being. It had given the cat human intelligence and mysterious powers that Sir Kipling simply called “Cat Magic” and refused to say another word about. For whatever reason, though, Lily was the only one who could decipher his meows. It proved inconvenient, at times, but for the most part Lily was profoundly grateful, since Sir Kipling—in true cat fashion—tended to say extremely snarky and irreverent things. Usually about her.

“He says we act like sworn enemies, not friends,” Lily summarized, holding up a pair of socks and trying to decide if they were salvageable.

Sebastian let out a barking laugh. “You should have seen us when we first met, Kip. Sparks flew as thick and fast as kdp

a Fourth of July firework show.”

Lily rolled her eyes but couldn’t quite hide her smile.

“Mmm, I can imagine,” Sir Kipling said, tail twitching. “Since you have brought up the topic, how did you two meet?”

At Sebastian’s questioning look, Lily relayed her cat’s words, causing her friend’s face to light up with excitement. “It’s a fabulous story, let me tell you,” he began, casting about for somewhere to put down his brush and soap.

“Oh no you don’t!” Lily gave him the stink eye, causing him to wilt. “I’ll tell the story. You get your butt over to the sink and start scrubbing.”

“But—”

“No buts.”

“But—”

“One more complaint, and I’ll tell your Aunt Barrington you still call her an old bat.”

Sebastian’s mouth snapped shut, and he drew himself up, attempting a dignified look. “You, madam, are the very definition of dastardly. I find myself with no recourse but to give in to your nefarious demands.”

“Uh-huh,” Lily said, unimpressed. “Now, less talking and more cleaning.”

With a dirty look over his shoulder, Sebastian returned to his task, though he kept an ear cocked to hear her story.

Lily, being more motivated than Sebastian to complete their task as quickly as possible, continued cleaning as she began her tale. “If I recall correctly, it was about a year and a half ago. I’d graduated from Agnes Scott the year before and was finishing up my masters in library science while working at McCain Library. At that point, Madam Barrington was still the archivist, but she’d been training me to take over. We were continuing our magic lessons, of course—she was my mentor after all. I remember it was winter break, and most of the students had left for the holidays…

About a Year and a Half Ago:

The freezing December wind bit into Lily’s exposed skin, making her shiver as she hurried toward the auction house door. Such discomfort was unusual in Atlanta, since the temperature rarely dropped below freezing and snow was a terrifying thing of myth and legend. Lily sighed in relief as she entered the warm refuge of the lobby. She’d broken out her only pair of gloves that morning, and had even dug in the back of her closet for a hat and scarf. Cold weather was not her cup of tea.

Having braved the cold, Lily looked around for the front desk. She was there to retrieve a certain lot of items Madam Barrington had recently purchased in an estate auction. The recently deceased owner, from what Lily understood, had been an especially eccentric and reclusive wizard who had died suddenly with no close family. He’d been an acquaintance of her mentor, however, so Madam Barrington had acted promptly to ensure none of his small but respectable collection of spell books and artifacts found their way into mundane hands. The books were to be added to the Basement’s collection—that secret magical archive hidden beneath McCain Library, of which Madam Barrington was the caretaker. The rest of the items would be “well cared for,” as her mentor cryptically put it. Her mentor was often cryptic, not to mention vague and even downright secretive. Over the five and a half years since Lily had begun studying magic, she’d learned that for every question Madam Barrington would answer, there were five she would not.

Finally spotting an employee rearranging a window display, Lily approached and was directed to the back of the building where the office manager greeted her.

“Ah, Miss Singer. We’ve been expecting you. Robert has your items in the back. If I could see your receipt, please?”

Lily dug in her purse—a beautiful carpetbag that was delightfully roomy and fit perfectly with the vintage style she preferred to wear—and handed the piece of paper to the woman. The office manager checked a few numbers on her computer, then handed the receipt back with a smile. “Thank you, Miss Singer. If you’ll wait here, I’ll have Robert bring it all out.”

The woman disappeared through a door while Lily waited by the desk, looking around at the various antiques and collectables artfully arranged into every available space.

“Buy anything interesting?”

Lily nearly jumped out of her skin. The voice had come from directly behind, almost on top of her, yet she hadn’t heard a single whisper of cloth or tap of a shoe to alert her of someone’s approach. She spun, suppressing her instinctive squeak of surprise.

The first thing she saw was a pair of chocolate-brown eyes, their warm depths alight with amused mischief. The spark in the man’s eyes extended down to his round, boyish cheeks—currently lifted in an easy smile that showed not-so-pearly, nor perfectly straight, teeth. Coupled with an unruly mop of dark hair, they added a delightful quirkiness to a face already gushing with charm and personality. All of which prompted a self-conscious blush to rise in Lily’s cheeks as she stepped back and ran into the desk behind her with a bump.

“I—Excuse me. I didn’t—That is…” Lily bit her lip to stop her embarrassing babble and dropped her eyes from that intense stare. Her gaze lit on the man’s lean chest, sheathed in a collared shirt, which, despite its rumpled state, still managed to give him an air of casual elegance. Noticing this made her blush even more furiously, and she looked to the side, desperately searching for a distraction.

“No, pardon me, miss. I didn’t mean to startle you.” The man’s apology was as polite as could be, but there were hints of laughter in his tone, which made Lily glance back up to give him a stern look, lips pursed. Despite her shy and awkward personality, Lily had a stubborn streak as wide as an Atlanta interstate. She did not appreciate being mocked.

“Think nothing of it, sir,” Lily replied, drawing herself up in as dignified a manner as she could manage with cheeks still burning and backside pressed against a desk.

“If you insist, but it would be a shame. They say you should enjoy the little things in life.”

Lily’s eyes narrowed. Had this impertinent scoundrel just insulted her? 

“But since you asked—and I make it a rule to humor beautiful women—I’ll let it pass this once,” he continued, flashing her a brilliant smile as he moved to the side and leaned against the desk, his posture languid and unconcerned.”

Thrown off by his brazen words, Lily’s mind worked furiously to come up with a sufficiently biting reply.

Her impromptu companion seemed to take her silence as an encouragement and kept talking. “So, get anything interesting at the auction? Most of it was sooo boring, of course, though that naughty pair of ivory statuettes from India caught my eye, if you know what I mean.” He winked conspiratorially at her.