‘The Vampire Knitting Club’ series has become my go-to listen for my monthly five-six hour drives across the UK. The narration is easy on the ear. The mystery plots are just complicated enough to be engaging without taking my attention away from my driving. The expanding ensemble cast is full of engaging characters. Our heroine, Lucy Swift, is easy to like. She’s new to everything: living in Oxford rather than her native Boston, running a knitting shop when she doesn’t know how to knit, hosting a nest of vampires who are fiendishly good at knitting and one of whom is her own recently deceased but now undead grandmother, and being a witch with powers she didn’t know she had and has yet to learn how to use. She’s also sometimes a little slow on the uptake, which gives us readers and opportunity either to feel smug for having spotted what she missed or to shout at her and tell her to pay more attention, depending on your inclination. Oh, and she also has a cat who seems to more than just a cute kitten. It hasn’t spoken yet but…

I listened to ‘The Vampire Knitting Club’, the first book in the series, a couple of weeks ago and thought that the series showed promise, so I listened to books two and three back-to-back on my next two long drives. Both books kept me entertained, and I was pleased to find that the series gets better (and a little darker) as it goes along. This isn’t a cosy mystery series that retells the same story time after time with a slightly different cast of victims and suspects. There’s clearly a longer story arc here, so each book pulled me further into the world of the Vampire Knitting Club.

‘Stitches and Witches’ was mostly a cosy murder mystery with relatively little to do with the supernatural (if you set aside vampires acting as amateur sleuths and the occasional exploding kettle caused by a spell from Lucy mismanaged). Lucy is in the teashop next door when a man taking tea dies in front of her. Of course murder is afoot, and Lucy places herself at the centre of the investigation. The mystery worked well. There was a good selection of suspects; secrets and deceptions were exposed, and there was some tension as Lucy became increasingly at risk. The ending was a little abrupt and a tad too simple, so my wife and I both went, “Seriously, that’s your murderer?” but it was still good fun.

‘Crochet and Cauldrons’ was the best in the series so far. It dived deep into the supernatural from the start, with Lucy’s archaeologist parents unexpectedly visiting from a dig in Egypt and bringing with them a cursed object that puts Lucy’s life in danger. 

Although there was a murder mystery at the heart of the story, this read more like a supernatural thriller. It still stayed more or less on the cosy side of the line, but there was a real sense of threat and some of the actions were much darker than in the earlier books. The magic involved is deadly. Lucy is unsure who she can trust. Even the senior witch she goes to for help comes across as a potential threat. 

Bringing Lucy’s parents, especially her “I’m a rational woman, and I can’t accept the idea that either you or I are witches”, mother, enriched the story, deepening my understanding of Lucy and increasing the level of perceived risk. 

The risk Lucy faced also served to consolidate her relationships with the vampires and witches around her, making her less of an outsider. Even her relationship with her cat familiar progressed. There were also hints at significant developments in Lucy’s power in the future.

The final confrontation was well done. The pacing worked. There was just enough of an element of surprise to keep things fresh. The baddy really was very bad, and the magic was creative. 

I’m hooked now. I’ve already bought the next three-audiobook bundle so that I can find out what Lucy and her companions get up to on my next long drive.