A Bitter Remedy: A Black Cat Apothecary Mystery Part 1 (The Black Cat Apothecary Mysteries) Kindle Edition

She solved murders with a microscope. In a town full of witches, that makes her the most dangerous person in the room.Sage Thornwood is not what Briarwood Hollow expected. The last in a seven-generation witch dynasty, she showed up to her Kindling Ceremony at thirteen and produced nothing — no spark, no stir, not even a flicker. The family called her a dud. She left and built a career as a forensic herbalist instead, applying rigorous science to the botanical world and quietly excelling at the one thing magic couldn't touch: understanding exactly what plants can do.When her grandmother Elara dies and leaves her the family apothecary, Sage returns to Briarwood Hollow with a rented car full of lab equipment, a growing folder of things about this situation that are deeply concerning, and a sealed letter she hasn't yet found the courage to open. She finds a shop full of wonders she'll need months to understand, a back garden hiding something wrong in its roots, and Grimoire — Elara's talking familiar — who greets her arrival with the specific composure of someone who expected Elara and received a significant downgrade.Grim is imperious, grief-stricken, and in possession of fifty-three years of irreplaceable knowledge about the apothecary. Sage is prickly, relentless, and the only person in a town full of witches who can identify a plant poison from skin discolouration alone. They are not friends. They are, however, deeply stuck with each other.When Desmond Fairchild — a wealthy, demanding tourist at Briarwood Hollow's prestigious Healing Springs — is found dead, the magical forensics team is baffled. The poison left no magical trace, the timeline is impossible, and the one suspect with means and motive has an airtight alibi. What it did leave, for anyone who knows where to look, is a very specific botanical fingerprint. Sage knows where to look.Navigating a hostile town council, a territorial sheriff who doesn't want her help, a rival apothecary run by the most elegantly ruthless woman in Briarwood Hollow, and the growing sense that her grandmother's death may not have been as peaceful as it appeared, Sage must solve a murder using nothing but science, stubbornness, and the reluctant expertise of a cat who is definitely not helping her. He is merely correcting her trajectory to prevent catastrophe. There is a difference.A Bitter Remedy is the first book in The Black Cat Apothecary Mysteries — a cozy magical mystery series set in a New England town where the forest glows at night, the bakery scones are enchanted, and the thornwood trees have been watching for three hundred years. Warm found-family dynamics, slow-burn romance, a mystery that rewards attention, and a famously grumpy cat who is, against every instinct, beginning to care.Perfect for fans of Diane Mott Davidson, Deborah Crombie, and T. Kingfisher. Fans of cozy mysteries with witches, magical small towns, and strong female sleuths who use their brains — not broomsticks — to catch killers will feel right at home in Briarwood Hollow. Read more