L. Evans is the author of Mages & Murder. It was published early last month. It is the 26th book I completed reading in 2024.

Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own! Due to scenes of violence, I categorize this novel as R.

Mistress Leonor owns The Dancing Bear Inn, located in the village of Bearstone. She has been retired from her time as a mercenary, though she still must be wary as there is an open bounty for her. For the most part, the village is off the busy main road. A winter storm changes that, bringing many outsiders to their village. Among them is Magister Aritus.

Leonor had known Magister Aritus long before. Back then, she was known as the infamous mercenary, Captain Thea Karns. Fortunately, Aritus had failed to recognize Leonor. When Aritus is discovered dead in his room at the Inn, Leonor feels she must take action to solve the murder. The last thing she wants is officials digging into the pasts of the people of Bearstone.

Leonor soon discovers that she is not the only resident with secrets. As she digs out clues, slowly narrowing in on the killer, she finds that she has put herself in danger.

I enjoyed the 6.5+ hours I spent reading this 164-page fantasy. I like the chosen cover art. I give this novel a rating of 3.3 (rounded to 3) out of 5.

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A cozy mystery set in a fantasy, D&D like world finds an innkeeper investigating the murder of a mage in her inn.

This one was super easy to read and fun! I liked the characters and setting. I'm interested to see if there will be more in this series either with Leonor as the main character, or just in Bearstone, since on Goodreads that is in the subtitle.

I received my copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I understand the comparison with Legends and Lattes, but I see it more as a cross with The Adventures of Amina Al Sirafi, in the sense that the setting is an inn, there's magic involved, the heroine is a mature woman with secrets to hide, a past life to conceal, and children to care for. However, I was delighted to find Alex Evans' touch, which I like, although I usually read her in French. It's an adventure/mystery that reads very easily and takes you away to a charming town full of colorful characters.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book. Mages and Murder is available now.

Am I allowed to think that a book which includes murder most foul is enchanting? Sure, there’s mayhem and a violent end, and the main character is a bounty hunter in hiding, but at its heart Mages and Murder is a delightful “whodunnit”.

The main character, Leonor, is hiding from people who would like to see her…not alive. She has taken over ownership of a small-town inn, which she runs with pride, until a horrible snowstorm and a very dead guest ruin her idyllic hideaway. Now she has to solve the mystery before her secret past is discovered.

I thought this was a fun premise, setting a locked room sort of mystery in a fantasy inn, as opposed to an imposing mansion. The bustle of the inn served to introduce the characters in an entertaining way that nonetheless moved the story along quickly. This is the sort of book that can be read easily in one sitting because it flies by at such a snappy pace.

The mystery itself is relatively easy to figure out, as the clues are more obviously presented than I usually see in a mystery. However, that didn’t dull my enjoyment in the slightest. It’s how Leonor solves the mystery rather than the culprit that makes this so entertaining.

The cast of characters is quirky, each one with their own secrets and issues. While many characters fit sort of a mold, the author did add interesting little touches to make them unique. This kind of book doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel. It just needs to find a new way to make it turn. Mages and Murder was loads of fun!

L. Evans' "Mages & Murder" combines a homey mystery with a fantasy reminiscent of a Renaissance fair. Just thinking about the main character's past as a mercenary and her relationship with the fathers of her children makes me think of a few spin-off stories for next novels. especially now that she's trying to lead a more laid-back lifestyle as an innkeeper.

There's not a lot of cozy mystery set in a world out of a high fantasy novel. This is the first I read and thoroughly enjoyed it.
It's not perfect as in a classic cozy mystery there's some clichè and some tropes like the heroine hidden and discovers bodies.
That said I had a lot of fun and enjoyed it
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I thought the story was nice and enjoyable but there wasn’t anything that greatly stood out to me.
I really liked the idea of the plot and love slice of life fantasy settings but this book left something to be desired for me.

I couldnt finish this book. From the very start we're given so much information, about the world, about 20 different characters and names that you honestly cant keep up or know who is who. This book just isnt written well and that is throughout with the characters and the way the talk and also just the overall setting.

Mages & Murder is a slice of life fantasy where in an old mercenary has build up a new life for herself. Which of course gets disturbed with a murder and a slight link to her old life.

While I was interested enough to finish the story I found it as a whole a little stereotypical. This might come from the short format but it also lays in some choices and writing. The street orphan that still needs more meat on their bones, the brewer who is a terrible drunk, all mages are terrible, etc. It didn't give itself room to break free from any typical fantasy stereotypes. And I thought that was a shame because I think the world otherwise has a lot of potential.

Another point about the writing is that it could have used another round of edits. Some sentences, mainly in dialogue, were awkwardly written. Like faults in order of words.

It is set in a small town and those are always fun because everyone knows each other. And while that feel was here, none of the characters stood out to me and I didn't really care about any of them. They were a little flat in places because of the above mentioned stereotypical ways. And again, that was a real shame, because it could have really enhanced the story.

Mages & Murder is a light cozy fantasy mystery by L. Evans. Either on hold or withdrawn from publication temporarily, it was due out 1st April 2024 from the author.

This is firmly in the cozy fantasy mystery subgenre. An unpleasant mage seeks shelter in a storm in the inn of a former mercenary and turns up dead (after managing to annoy and harass more or less everyone he encountered). It's a classic closed suspect pool setup with an isolated setting, cut off from outside help as a result of a blizzard, with a limited list of suspects for the mercenary, Leonor, to disentangle.

It's an indie-published work, and as such, could've benefited from a more thorough editing process. According to the author's substack, she translated and updated the novella from the original French. There are some minor typos and awkward French to English sentence constructions, but overall, it's entertaining. Inevitable comparisons will be made between this work and Legends & Lattes, and it suffers by comparison. It's enjoyable in its own right, and should be read as such.

Four stars. It's possible that it's available directly from the author, but that information isn't readily available.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

This was a very quick read and I love the cozy fantasy genre, so I had a fun time reading this book. Since it was a short book, the plot and the characters did not have a lot of depth. Most of the characters did not get much backstory so it was hard for me to feel connected to the characters and plot. It was a fun read, but it would be nice to see a bit more with the characters since some of them did not get a lot of page time and I kind of forgot who they were when brought up later. Overall, I would like to see more characterization added since the plot was interesting and I just loved the cozy vibes with all of the imagery throughout the whole book.

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC copy!

I found this a delight; a good mystery in a fantasy world. Leonor, an innkeeper and a former mercenary with a bounty on her head, kept her head down in her quiet out-of-the-way village until a bad snow storm brought an influx of guests seeking shelter. One, an obnoxious mage, was found murdered in her best room the next day. The mage had many secrets, including an unexpected connection to this village and Leonor must investigate to discover who was responsible before her own secrets were exposed.

I really enjoyed the characters. It also dealt with both the strength and weaknesses of a small community. Many of the people bonded together to get through the storm and try to find out who the culprit was but gossip and petty grievances also caused problems. Even in a fantasy world people were much the same as in this one.

I would enjoy more books set in this world.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

The genres cozy fantasy and murder mystery combine greatly, and Mages & Murder tried it with a fantastic effort. Despite that effort, it did fall short here and there.

The backstory of Leonor, a former mercenary that retired to a small village, has potential to be a tremendous building stone towards the emotional bonding of the reader with the main protagonist. While you do get snippets of her past life, it doesn’t make Leonor a very loveable character as most of the time it felt like she wanted to get it all over with. This feeling often repeated throughout the book. The rest of the characters were interesting in their own way, being mages and hedge witches and the likes, but the connections simply weren’t there. The world building itself did have more details, thankfully.

It could do with another editorial editing as there were plenty of mistakes throughout in the form of repeated words in the same sentence, misspellings, and more.

I enjoyed the short read that it was, and the mystery element was there until it unraveled far too fast. I’m giving it 3 stars because I liked it, but it will not wow you.

Thank you to NetGalley, Xpresso Book Tours and L. Evans for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

murders. Leonor is a retired mercenary who has settled into a small sleepy town to open an inn. Think something along the lines of legends and lattes. However one day a mage checks into her inn and is murdered during the night. Due to an avalanche most travellers are stuck in town. With the influx of visitors comes new suspects and even more murder. This is like a somewhat locked room murder mystery set in a cozy fantasy town. The author did a good job establishing the world setting and the main characters backstory in a short amount of time. I did predict the ending but in the beginning it was a bit more twisty. The main character had a lot of interesting backstory but it was only told to us but had no real implications to the story. There are a lot of characters introduced and not a lot of them have important roles to play, they only had a few lines each. Many times it was just groups of characters together sharing information but none had significant time on the page. There were also a lot of M name characters, but again since they didn’t have large roles I couldn’t distinguish all of them. Overall it’s a fun shorter story, and it’s obvious the author put a lot of time fleshing out the main character and the setting but I wish there was just a little more to it.
Thank you to NetGalley, Xpresso book tours and L Evans for this ARC

This was a quick read clearly inspired by the cozy fantasy genre with the rise and population of books like Legends and Lattes.

There's been a murder!
A traveling mage is killed in his room in a small inn. The inn keeper, having thought that kind of high stakes life was long over, pieces together this seemingly random attack.

I had high hopes for this from the premise and it has great potential, but it just missed the mark in my opinion. I know this is only an ARC and there is further revision before publication, but some of the spelling and grammatical errors were just too egregious, I don't see how they weren't caught already.

I felt that there was little to no depth in our main character, let alone any of the side characters. The flow of the story was very choppy and the revelation was anticlimactic.

Again, I think this story has a lot of potential and the premise is great. This could be a very cozy mystery with high fantasy elements if executed properly.

Mages & Murder

I'm not normally a person to read mystery, but I really like fantasy and a cozy fantasy mystery sounded incredible!

The vibes of this book were a solid 8/10. The world building, characters and plot wer interesting. I really enjoyed exploring this world and seeing how rich it was. The main character was interesting, and I left wanting to know more. I found it to be an interesting read, if not my normal genre.

So what brings my rating down to 3 stars? I struggled reading this book. Now, partially that is because it's not my normal genres and I've been incredibly busy. Yet, there was nothing that kept me continuing to say "one more page/chapter." For me, I think it was there was a sense that Leonor was hiding from herself, that we didn't get to know who she was, merely who she was pretending to be.
I was left wanting to know more about the characters that I didn't get a chance to learn in this 148 page book.

The other problem I encountered (that I hope will be fixed!) is the number of typos. This book could really have used another copy edit.
Issues I encountered:
the phrase "named wife" the person that was being discussed had a "named wife" who had died. Is a named wife a thing in this universe? Or is that the name hadn't been written and it didn't get checked.
One repeated line of dialogue from inside a paragraph repeated outside of it (in a way that clearly indicated it wasn't said twice, but merely had been rewritten and not deleted).
Small typos: from the "Royal Road" was spelled "Roayal" at one point, to having a sentence start with "WMar(rest of name)".
What does my last comment mean? It means there were at least 2 characters that had names starting with "Mar." Marrietta? Marion? I don't remember and couldn't tell you the difference other than one is like a gossip and one is a fisherperson/town leader. And I believe there was at least one more Ma name, but I'm unsure and my copy has been returned this morning. The number of "M" names was not my favorite.
The last thing is a thing that will probably only bother me and people like me, who are sensitive to repeated phrases. The number of times things were said to be like things that would happen in "a cheap novel" was... too often.

So, to summarize:
VIBES: Awesome. Actually reading it? not as fun for me. If you're a vibes based reader, you'll love this. Particularly if you like cozy mystery or cozy fantasy. I found it to be fun and it's shorter so it's a great afternoon read.
I know if I were a different kind of reader I would have devoured it.

5.5/10 = 2.5 to 3 stars.

Thank you to netgalley and the author and publisher for allowing me to preview this book.

In this cozy mystery, one finds Leonor, a retired mercenary who is hiding from her past in a tiny mountain village as an owner and proprietor of an inn. At the beginning of the story, an avalanche occurs that blocks the main road and forces many travelers into their sleepy town of Bearstone. While there many different types of travelers arrive, including a mage from the capital. Unfortunately, this mage ends up dead, and the mystery begins.

I found this book to be easy to read, while enjoyable and diverse characters. The atmosphere was quaint, and descriptions were well used and not overused. I think that the author definitely could have expanded on the characters and their personalities, backgrounds, histories, etc. to give them more depth. The plot was average, and honestly followed most cozy mystery patterns. There was potential to perhaps make the stakes a little higher, or the intrigue a little more intense to make this particular story stand out.

I will also assume that this is still going through the editing process as there are many proofreading errors and some places where the sentences and paragraphs are actually repeated. I think that it could be longer, which would allow some details and depth to be added to the story to allow it to better stand out.

Overall, I enjoyed the story. It has potential, and I would honestly love to read more about these characters and hear more about their lives and the mayhap and mischief that occurs to them.

I was unable to post to Goodreads, as the book cannot be found on there.

Mages and Murder by L Evans is a mystery in a fantasy setting. The main character, Leonor, is an innkeeper in a tiny village who would like to keep her past buried. When a natural disaster shuts down the main bridge, she has to host a large number of trapped travelers. When the murder occurs, she hopes to get it resolved quickly to keep outsiders from prying too much into her and the townspeople.

This was a fun and quick novel. While it would definitely benefit from editing and proofing, the story itself is an entertaining way to spend a couple of hours. Since there are mages and other magical types, I was missing a bit more magic, but the setting was well described, and I enjoyed getting to know the characters, particularly the hedge witch.

This is set up to spin sequels, perhaps a journey to see Leonor’s daughter at the Mage’s College.

3.5 stars

Thank you to Netgalley for the eARC.

A quaint village, a former mercenary with a bounty on her head, and a murdered mage? Sign me up! I love such tales, and the synopsis reminded me of one of my favorite books, "Legends & Lattes," so I couldn't resist the book. "Mages & Murder" by L. Evans is a sweet cozy fantasy I enjoyed reading.

The book follows Leonor, a former mercenary with a shadowy past, who has opened an inn in the quaint village of Bearstone. She lives there with her 15-year-old son and the help. A winter storm brings an influx of travelers, including a mage. When the mage is found murdered in her best room, her peaceful life is shattered. She has to find the murderer before the high guard arrives and her secret is revealed. As she keeps digging, she finds out she is not the only one with a hidden history and secrets.

I greatly enjoyed the book. The story is written in the first-person narrative from Leonor's perspective, allowing us to experience the events as they unfold through her eyes. The storyline is not so complex as to frustrate readers, but neither is it so simplistic as to bore them.

I loved the setting, the atmosphere, and the mystery. I didn't figure out at first who the murderer was, and I enjoyed following in Leonor's footsteps as she pieced together the clues. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending; I felt justice wasn't totally served. I also expected a bit more magic, as it is fantasy after all.

I had no trouble keeping up with the speakers or remembering their names. I found the book easy to follow. It could benefit from another round of editing, as there are a few spelling and grammar errors, and the writing was a bit choppy at times. That said, I loved the book and rate it 4 out of 5 stars. I would love to read more books in this setting. I recommend the book to lovers of the genre who enjoy stories of reinventing oneself to start over and books that focus on community.

* Thank you NetGalley and (publisher) for the opportunity to read this arc. All opinions are my own.

The cover and synopsis really grabbed me. Unfortunately that was the best part of my experience with this book. It read rough as you never couldn’t keep up with who was speaking at times and the ending just tumbled out so quickly and easily. I really wanted to love this, it sadly that was not the case here.