Book Review: Toil and Trouble

A relative newcomer to Lily Dale, the quirky New York lakeside village populated by spiritual mediums, young widow Bella Jordan doesn’t have time to believe in supernatural entities. She has enough to tackle, what with running Valley View guesthouse, wrangling her seven-year-old son Max and their growing army of pets, and dealing with her lovable but meddlesome neighbors.

So when Pandora Feeney, Valley View’s highly eccentric – and reputedly highly psychic – owner, portentously predicts that something wicked this way comes, Bella’s more worried about the fact that Pandora’s announced she plans to move back into the guesthouse than about approaching danger. Besides, the local theatre is putting on a performance of Macbeth, so it’s no wonder that sorcery and black magic are in the air.

Lily Dale is safe. Bella’s sure of it. Even if one of her female guests at Valley View is setting her oddly on edge and Max is seeing witches behind every corner. Little does Bella know that a storm is coming, with the power to blow her life, and Max’s, right off course... or far, far worse.

Toil and Trouble, the seventh book in the Lily Dale Mystery series by Wendy Corsi Staub, will be published July 1, 2025. Severn House provided an early galley for review.

I am proud to say that I have known the author for most of my life (we went to the same schools and church growing up). I am also familiar with Lily Dale, the real life community not far from our hometown of Dunkirk. I look forward to checking out Wendy's newest books set there.

This story, like the previous one in the series, is character-driven. Wendy seems very comfortable with her cast which shows in the interactions and dialogue. It is a nice touch that the chapters which focus on Bella's son Max tend to be written in a more juvenile fiction structure and tone (fitting for parts of the story told from the viewpoint of a seven year-old); the sentences here are less complex and more straight-forward.

The action of the plot really kicks into high gear around the 70% mark which gives the reader an eagerness to keep reading steadily to the dramatic conclusion.