Title: A Charming Touch of Tarot
Author: Melissa Holtz
Year Published: 2025
Genre: Cozy Mystery/Paranormal
Setting: The Northeast, US
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
A Charming Touch of Tarot: A Blurb
Alyssa and her friends Nina, Lanie, and Corinne are celebrating the holiday season when things start to go sideways. The women are still learning how to use their supernatural abilities and dealing with the fallout of previous events, both of which are challenged as multiple ghosts approach Alyssa, asking for help to move on to the other side. This includes solving a murder, which loops in Alyssa’s love interest, Nick. Nina also reveals that she was being blackmailed because of a shocking secret and enlists her friends’ help in tracking down someone.
All the while, Alyssa and Nick are navigating their relationship while dealing with the sometimes literal ghosts of their past relationships (both of them lost their spouses/fiancées). Their paths cross professionally as well, as Nick, a homicide detective, relies on Alyssa’s abilities to help him progress in the homicide case, and Alyssa and her friends rely on him to help pursue Nina’s secret.
It quickly becomes clear that everything is interconnected–and dangerous, if the women don’t find the villain quickly.
A Brief Disclaimer
A brief disclaimer: I didn’t realize that this was part of a series when I picked it up, and I think it would have been a lot more enjoyable/made more sense if I’d read the first book. The events of the first book are referenced heavily, and though there is some explanation, it would have been helpful to have read that book just because so much of it pops up. It would have also helped to better understand the character dynamics, especially between the women.
With that being said, it was still possible to enjoy the book just going off the backstory provided. This book brought in a ton of elements that I enjoy from different genres: light paranormal, cozy mystery, romance, and female friendships. In the end, however, it fell a little flat for me, mostly because of some writing quirks that I’ll go into below. There were definitely several parts that I enjoyed, and I’ll cover those here.
My Thoughts
A Charming Touch of Tarot has a few plot arcs going on: the ghosts/crime arc, Nina’s secret arc, and Alyssa’s romance arc. I felt like the back-of-the-book blurb focused more on the Nina’s secret and blackmail aspect, which was what really drew me in. While that definitely was central to the story, I don’t know if I would say it was necessarily the main part of the story, so I felt like my expectations weren’t fully met.
The ghosts/crime arc was interesting. I enjoyed the way in which the women used their abilities to help solve the crime. My one complaint here is that it felt like everything was a bit too coincidental and that there was a lot going on. The women travel to many different cities to track down Nina’s secret, and almost every city coincidentally holds a clue toward the homicides happening in their small hometown. That felt like a bit of a stretch for me, although I suppose it is fiction.
Nina’s arc was definitely the best, although domestic suspense/drama is my preference, so that made sense. I don’t want to spoil much, so I’ll just say that you’ll probably enjoy it if you like telenovela-like secrets arising from the past, blackmail, and a kind of road trip of following clues to the final secret.
The romance arc was good. One of the ghosts attached to Alyssa is Nick’s deceased fiancée, so that added a bit of drama to an otherwise stable/typical cozy mystery romance. All of the intimacy occurs off-page, which I felt made sense for A Charming Touch of Tarot. The main focus in their relationship, beyond solving a crime, really is getting to know each other better, which was nice.
Other Thoughts
Two things writing-wise drove me crazy throughout the story. The first was the amount of telling, not showing. It was constant and distracting. The characters would do something, and then there would immediately be a “this is why they said/did this” after it. It made me crazy. The second is the amount of distracting dialogue tags. I know that there should be some variety beyond “said,” but it felt like the author was going out of her way to place in every single verb except for “said,” even when it didn’t necessarily make sense. In the end, it became rather distracting and weakened the overall quality of writing.
My final critique was about this seemingly random passage about Botox in the middle of the book. There was about half a page dedicated to the main character’s skin care routine and her thoughts about getting Botox and why people shouldn’t judge women for getting it. When I was reading it, I had to pause and flip back to the page before because it had nothing to do with the plot and felt so out of place. If it was a sentence, it might have made sense. Yet half a page? It just felt very random and unnecessary.
Wrap Up
Part of why this novel didn’t resonate with me may have been that I was slightly outside its target audience and I prefer more upmarket feeling books. If you like commercial cozy mystery books (another cozy mystery rec: A Death on Corfu) with a Hallmarky feel (it sort of reminded me of The Good Witch), strong female friendships, and a paranormal element, I’m sure you’ll love A Charming Touch of Tarot.
Have you read this book? Let me know what you thought!
