Jade Godfrey owns a popular cupcake bakery in Vancouver, BC, Canada. She's also half-witch on her mother's side, and although she's not any good at spell casting, she's a dowser. Dowsers are the rare Adepts who can see magic and "taste" the magic associated with individual Adepts. So werewolf magic tastes like chocolate, witches like grass, and so on. She mainly uses her gift to combine random objects with a trace of magic on them into little trinkets that she hangs around her bakery or turns into jewelry. They're just pretty and don't do anything. At least that's what Jade thinks until they start appearing on dead werewolves that have had all the magic sucked out of them. Black Magic. Naturally, the nearest pack, which consists of more than just wolves, first suspects Jade. But with her curly blonde hair, sunny disposition, and tasty cupcakes, Jade is an unlikely murderer. Still, she must be relevant to the case since her trinkets are found on the bodies, so the alpha, Desmond, slaps a life debt on her that can only be paid off by finding the killer. So far it seems like a typical urban fantasy with a Canadian flair, but Doidge skillfully manages to avoid the most common tropes as Jade slowly discovers who and what she really is. The Dowser, Alchemist, and Wielder of the Instruments of Assassination.

Book one was looking fairly typical with both a were-lion alpha and an elder vampire flirting with Jade. Luckily, despite a few hot kisses with the alpha Desmond, Doidge dodges that trope entirely by the end of book two. In fact, unlike most urban fantasies, there is actually very little sex. Another difference in this series is the world building, which tends to feel like the newer cozy fantasy genre. Where other series have at least one pack of weres per city, Desmond's pack covers the entire west coast of North America, so the population of Adepts worldwide is actually very low. Jade's grandmother is a powerful Witch, so other than a few witches of mixed blood, including Jade and her adopted sister Sienna, there aren't many Adepts in Vancouver. Kett is the first vampire Jade has ever met because vamps are extremely rare. To create another vamp shares the creator's power equally between the two, so it's a serious decision. There are also a necromancer and her two half-witch children, as well as some First Nations skinwalkers (nothing like Jane Yellowrock) in the Vancouver area. The first sorcerer Jade meets is morally corrupt and gives her a strong prejudice against them despite meeting better examples.

The ongoing story of the books surrounds Jade's non-witch half which I won't spoil here. So far there are eight books that are divided into three sub plot arcs with separate villains. Jade and her bff's Kett the vampire, Kandy the lesbian werewolf, and Drake the teenage dragon face off against a black witch, a deranged dragon, and an invasion of elves. Most people think dragons and elves are just myths, but it turns out there are still a few. Jade ends up digging up the family dirt, exploring ancient temples in Indiana Jones style, falls in love, and ends up far more powerful than she ever imagined. She still runs her bakery in her spare time. After the first three books this series is intertwined with three other series that focus on small characters first met in this one. I looked at their blurbs but didn't read them, and while some of these characters are impacted, Doidge includes enough information in this series that I don't feel like I missed much. 

There aren't a lot of reviews on Audible, but the single review that mentions her says that her pronunciation on a few words doesn't match Midwestern American English but that she quickly got used to it. Having grown up near the Canadian border I can confirm that some of the phrasing in the book matches what I grew up with and the author even points out that Kandy who is from Portland, OR says things differently than Jade does. On Barnes and Noble where the first book, Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic, is free the books have five stars. A couple of the books were cheaper on B&N than Amazon prices but the first book is free there as well. For myself I give the series a solid B+ based on worldbuilding, writing, and the humor. It gets an A for more originality than most urban fantasies and for tapping into the cozy fantasy vibe that is gaining popularity.