Read time: 4 minutes
📱📖 Read on Kindle | 📃 159 pages | ⏱ Duration: 6-7 hours
Genre: Urban Paranormal Fantasy | ARC by Edelweiss
🏷️ Publisher name: Writing Sparkle Books
Book Blurb:
Emaline Bo Vesper moves to Gwenwick Creek hoping for a fresh start, but hiding magical abilities in a town wary of anyone gifted makes that difficult. When a graffiti artist vandalizes her new detective agency’s sign, it’s the least of her worries. Quirky coffee shop owner Gianna Moore muscles her way into Emaline’s life and pulls her into a deadly mystery, putting Emaline under the watchful eye of someone dangerous. To survive and build the life she wants, Emaline will have to embrace her gemphagist identity and the community around her, before whoever is killing people in Gwenwick Creek comes for her next.
Let’s talk about the book:
Dug Up is a self published book by Shari Marshall’s publishing imprint and I got access to the book through Edelweiss. I am a fan of urban paranormal fantasy books. I am also a huge proponent of new and self published authors. So it really hurts me to say that this book did not resonate with me. I had to go through the book twice to make sense of the story.
The switch between the POVs was not labelled so it was difficult for me to track who is now telling the story. The past and present navigation that the main character goes through also added confusion to understand what is happening in the storyline. At certain points, I had to go back to read it again to understand if the narrative was present or already happened in the past. The story itself was interesting and I enjoyed the mystery, investigation, and final reveal, although I did clue in on one part of the mystery pretty early. But still, this took too much effort to figure out a story that’s only 159 pages long. It should have been only a 2 hour long read, but ended up being a 6-7 hour read because of the re-read requirement to clear confusion.
would I recommend it?
The mystery at the heart of Dug Up is genuinely interesting, and the world of gemphagists and magic-fearing towns has real potential. But a book this short shouldn’t take this much work to follow. Unlabelled POV switches and a timeline that jumps between past and present without warning turned a 2 hour read into a 6-7 hour slog of flipping back to figure out what I’d missed. I wanted to love this one, especially as a self-published debut in a genre I adore, but the execution got in the way of the story.
⭐⭐
5 Books to Read Next:
- Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey — If you want another reluctant investigator stepping into a magic world she’s not quite part of, pick up Magic for Liars. It swaps Emaline’s detective agency for a PI hired to solve a murder at a magic school, and it never once loses you in the timeline.
Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy
- Grave Witch by Kalayna Price — For more of a witch-detective solving murders while keeping her own secrets in check, try Grave Witch. Alex Craft raises the dead for a living, and the mystery unfolds in a much clearer, linear way than Dug Up managed.
Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy
- First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones — If the found-family, small-town-detective vibe of Emaline and Gianna appealed to you more than the plot mechanics, this gives you a wisecracking PI-slash-Grim-Reaper with the same blend of humor and mystery, minus the confusing structure.
Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy
- Fated by Benedict Jacka — Want more of the hidden-magic-in-plain-sight setup? Fated follows a mage running a magic shop who gets pulled into danger the moment his abilities become useful to the wrong people, exactly the kind of world-building Dug Up was reaching for.
Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy
- Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch — If it’s the investigation format you loved, this blends police procedural with urban magic and manages a much tighter mystery than Dug Up, while still keeping the humor and heart.
Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy
Confusing Timelines: Deal-Breaker or Just a Bump in the Road?
Have you ever had to re-read a section of a book two or three times just to figure out whose head you’re in? Where’s your line between “give me a challenge” and “just tell me what’s happening”? Drop your take in the comments.
Book Links
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Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy
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