Sometimes, a book just feels as if it finishes a series. I really can’t say that the sixteenth Magical Cats mystery, Sofie Kelly’s Furever After, is the last book. There’s no indication it is, except the wedding seems to sum so much up, and the concluding line is, “We were going to live happily ever after.” We’ll see what happens.

Library director Kathleen Paulson has less than two months until her wedding to police detective Marcus Gordon. Now, she finds herself juggling wedding preparations with a mystery after she finds the body of Will Redfern in the library. Will was the original contractor for the library renovations, but he went to jail after assaulting Kat. Now, she wants to know why he was back in the library, and why it appears he was trying to remove a painting from the wall.

No one has a good word for the dead man, and that bothers Kat, that no one in town seems sad about his death. She had been willing to give the man a second chance, and now she can’t. So, she lets Marcus know she’s going to ask questions about his death, and his connection to the library painting.

Kathleen didn’t think the painting was anything special but a local artist and an art history expert suspect it was part of an art heist from the home of a wealthy collector about six years earlier. When someone breaks into Kat’s house, she knows she’s on the right track.

Like the residents, I had no sympathy for the victim. However, another storyline appealed to me. Riley and Duncan Hollister are two siblings whose father was in prison, and grandfather is a local troublemaker. But, Kat, Marcus, and other people take an interest in the two. Furever After is a mystery, and Kat’s magical cats, Owen and Hercules, put in their appearances. However, it’s also a story of chosen family, hugs, and friends, elements that make the second storyline so appealing. It’s a tear jerker with a lot of love, the best part of the book.

Sofie Kelly’s website is https://sofiekelly.com/

Furever After by Sofie Kelly. Berkley, 2024. ISBN 9780593548738 (hardcover), 304p.

FTC Full Disclosure – I received a galley through NetGalley in order to review the book for a journal.