There is no shortage of single witches struggling to get by in the urban fantasy genre and I admit that I picked up the first book in this series because Barnes and Noble offered it for free. I went on to buy the other five books because they were better written than most and Galway put some real creativity into her magical world of witches and fae creatures. Alma Bellrose is about as disgraced as a witch from such an old and powerful family can get and thought moving to Silverpool, which is hidden from the mundane world and most witches because of the magical pool that attracts all types of fae creatures, would keep her under the radar as far as the Protectorate is concerned. That might have been more successful if she hadn't dated Silverpool's Protector, but considering that he dated almost every woman in town it wouldn't have been a problem if he didn't wind up dead on the bridge leading in and out of town. Alma tries to solve the murder just to get the Protectorate agents out of town before they realize that her father the infamous thief and the changeling she refused to kill when she her self was a Protectorate agent are both hanging around. Investigating the mystery will force Alma to question many assumptions she has about her life, the fae, and the Protectorate itself.
It's not easy being the only child of a notorious thief so Alma worked hard and leveraged her family name to get herself a job with the Protectorate hoping that it would lend her some respectability. One of the main duties of the Protectorate agents is to kill "demons", which is what most people call possessing spirits. Alma's first assignment is to kill a demon but as far as she can tell it hasn't done anything wrong so she refuses to kill the changeling Stephen and gets fired. Disillusioned with the Witch world in general she turned away from the modern methods of storing spells in gold and gems and practices the traditional herb witchery that utilizes common items from the kitchen and garden for it's spellwork. The spell recipes are not only detailed but creative in both the ingredients and implementation. I don't want to spoil the disgusting, but very effective, spell Alma uses to ward her house against intruders.
The attention to detail and well developed characters really distinguish this book in an overcrowded genre. All of the secondary characters, including the dead guy, are well developed and engaging. Not only are the magic systems described in detail but also with humor and a few quirky effects to give them more entertainment value. Like, what is up with a big box store in a remote small town always having exactly what you're looking for no matter how unlikely? The answer actually makes a lot of sense but Galway has plenty of fun with it.
Dead Witch on a Bridge is available in ebook free from both Barnes and Noble and Amazon. It's also available in paperback.