Lily Ivory has spent years on the move. Now she has settled in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury and opens Aunt Cora’s Closet, a vintage clothing shop. She hopes to make friends and keep her witchiness quiet. Then an elderly client is murdered and children start disappearing from the Bay Area. This book opened Juliet Blackwell’s Witchcraft Mysteries in July 2009.
What Is Secondhand Spirits About?
Lily is a natural witch from a small Texas town who spent years traveling before landing in San Francisco. She has a magical knack for vintage fashion: she can sense vibrations of the past from clothing. She feels the moods and memories of the people who wore it. It is a useful gift for someone who sells vintage clothes.
When the murder and the disappearances begin, Lily suspects something older than a human killer: La Llorona, the weeping woman of Mexican and Southwestern folklore. To protect the children she has to use her magic, and risk being forced out of the closet as a witch. We won’t say how it ends.
Lily Ivory, Oscar and Two Very Different Men
Lily is powerful, lonely and careful, and her wish for an ordinary life is easy to root for. Lily’s familiar, Oscar, is a gargoyle-like creature who usually looks like a pot-bellied pig, and he steals every scene. He is a gift from Aidan Rhodes, a powerful witch and a leader of the local magical community.
The other man is Max Carmichael, a skeptical reporter who debunks ghost hunters and psychics. He is attractive, and he is exactly the person a secret witch should avoid. The pull between Aidan and Max runs through the series.
Our Review: A Witchy Debut With Real Folklore
The magic is the best part. It rests on herbs, folk healing and the history held in objects, not on wands, and it feels researched. Blackwell trained as an anthropologist, and it shows. Mystery Scene praised the solid plotting and called the book a wonderful debut with a cozy tone. Romantic Times compared Lily to a modern Samantha Stevens without the nose twitch.
Some readers found the start slow and the mystery thin, and some disliked Lily using spells on people. We think the setting and Oscar make up for it. If you like a paranormal mystery with some darkness under the charm, start here.
The Witchcraft Mysteries in Order
The series has 11 novels, published by Berkley and its imprints from 2009 to 2021. No twelfth has been announced. Read them in order, because Lily’s past, her magic and her love life develop over the series.
- Secondhand Spirits (2009)
- A Cast-Off Coven (2010)
- Hexes and Hemlines (2011)
- In a Witch’s Wardrobe (2012)
- Tarnished and Torn (2013)
- A Vision in Velvet (2014)
- Spellcasting in Silk (2015)
- A Toxic Trousseau (2016)
- A Magical Match (2018)
- Bewitched and Betrothed (2019)
- Synchronized Sorcery (2021)
There is also a crossover novella with the author’s Haunted Home Renovation series, A Haunting Is Brewing (2014). The fourth novel was a finalist for the Left Coast Crime Watson Award.
Who Wrote Secondhand Spirits?
Juliet Blackwell is the pen name of Julie Goodson-Lawes, who was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She worked as an anthropologist, a social worker and a decorative painter before writing full time. Research into folk medicine led her to witchcraft, and a favorite aunt who read tea leaves called herself a witch. With her sister, Carolyn J. Lawes, she wrote the Art Lover’s Mysteries as Hailey Lind, a series nominated for an Agatha Award. Her newest book is a standalone, The Séance Garden (2026).
What Are Some Good Witchy Cozy Mystery Series?
Lists of the best paranormal cozy series keep coming back to Blackwell’s books, and to these:
- Bailey Cates’s Magical Bakery Mysteries
- Gigi Pandian’s Accidental Alchemist Mysteries
- Carol J. Perry’s Witch City Mysteries
- Madelyn Alt’s Bewitching Mysteries, starting with The Trouble with Magic
- Esme Addison’s Enchanted Bay Mysteries
- Victoria Laurie’s Ghost Hunter Mysteries, starting with What’s a Ghoul to Do?
There is no single best paranormal cozy series; it depends on whether you want witches, ghosts or a bakery. More are on our witch cozy mysteries page.
Quick Facts
| Title | Secondhand Spirits |
|---|---|
| Author | Juliet Blackwell (Julie Goodson-Lawes) |
| Series | Witchcraft Mysteries, book 1 of 11 |
| First published | July 2009, Berkley (Signet paperback) |
| Setting | Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco |
| Sleuth | Lily Ivory, a witch and vintage clothing store owner |
| Audiobook | Narrated by Xe Sands, 8 h 10 min (Tantor Media, 2012) |
| Animals | Oscar, a familiar disguised as a pot-bellied pig |
| Next book | A Cast-Off Coven (2010) |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it the first book in the Witchcraft Mysteries?
Yes. It introduces Lily, Oscar and the shop, and it is the place to start.
Is there an audiobook?
Yes. Xe Sands reads the unabridged recording, and Publishers Weekly praised how she caught Lily’s Texas twang.