by Cynthia Chow & Valona Jones

This week we have a review of the supernatural cozy mystery Flamed Out by Valona Jones, along with a fun guest post by Valona aka Maggie Toussaint about different levels of scary books. Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win a copy of the book and a link to purchase it from Amazon.

Flamed Out: A Magic Candle Shop By Valona Jones
Review by Cynthia Chow

It’s been less than a year since Tabby Quigsly and her twin sister Sage Winslow began exploring their psychic abilities as energetics, as their mother had protected her daughters from Savannah, Georgia’s Paranormal Council and its oppressive rules. One of its most prominent members has just taken a fatal fall down the appropriately named Stone Stairs of Death though, and while the police initially label it an accident, Dr. Willim Rosemont’s niece believes it to have been murder. Since both Tabby and Sage have previously found themselves in the midst of murder investigations to clear both themselves and loved ones, it seems reasonable that they are the ones Fawn Meldrim turns to for help. Tabby discovering that she is pregnant should be the biggest shock that could disrupt her plans to investigate, but it’s really the revelation of her husband’s witchy power that destroys everything she thought about their relationship and their possible future.

For once Sage seems to be the more stable one in the twin relationship, and they use their twin-link to telepathically communicate and support one another as they begin to look into the unsettling truths within the Paranormal Council, its training methods, and why their mother was justified in keeping them a secret and out of its reach. As it turns out, Dr. Rosemont was a psychiatrist who held numerous secrets and whose seat on the Council was one sought after by more than one of its members.

This is the fifth of the series by the author who also writes many other Savannah-based mysteries under the name Maggie Toussaint. New readers can quickly become immersed in this world and its rules, especially since Tabby and Sage are themselves novices with their abilities and rather ignorant of the paranormals around them. While the Historic District Savannah Police Department Captain Kenzo Haynes considers Tabby to be a gifted consulting detective, she is reluctant to officially join and instead prefers to run the twins’ candle shop.

The mystery plays out in the background as Tabby confronts the news about her husband, whose position as the medical examiner would normally have him equally involved in the investigation. Instead, what Tabby learns about Dr. Octavian Henry “Quigs” Quigsly completely disrupts her world and has her questioning their love, his motives, and whether she has had any free will or choices in deciding their fates. This is a fascinating, very complicated avenue to explore for the characters and their entire series, and readers will be equally torn in how their relationships should be resolved. The lore of the Paranormal Council and its intimidating training methods ensure that this is a compelling read for the Halloween season, especially as its Black Widow-esque assassin training school darkly looms over the town and a fate Tabby barely escaped. This latest in the series leans more heavily in the paranormal direction as it explores the sisters’ growing powers, reincarnated aunt-in-a-cat, and extraordinary mythical residents.

Cynthia Chow is the branch manager of Kaneohe Public Library on the island of Oahu. She balances a librarian lifestyle of cardigans and hair buns with a passion for motorcycle riding and regrettable tattoos (sorry, Mom).

Scary versus Not Scary
By Maggie Toussaint aka Valona Jones

Remember those carnival days of years past when you would whack the scale with a hammer or mallet, and the “high striker” would measure your force by shooting a puck up a tower? The goal is to have the puck ring the bell at the top of the tower.

I don’t know about you, but I was never able to do that, but that rising puck is forever seared in my mind as a scale of stuff. For instance, I hark back to that image when I learn a book, TV show, or movie is scary. I don’t mind a little scary. That I can handle. It’s the really scary Stephen King level of fright that glues my eyelids wide open for days.

You should correctly guess I avoid super scary stuff. But I’ve bent my rules a few times. When I first started reading paranormal mysteries and romances, my sticking point was absolutely no vampires or werewolves. I didn’t want nightmares about someone sucking my blood, or a shifter that looked like a person but could rip me to shreds when the change came on them.

Then along came Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series. I loved the way she brought Vampire Sam into the story. Her characterization made me believe that he had good qualities despite being a vampire. I read the series and watched the series. I didn’t get scared to death but sometimes I got scared…

My path to book publication wandered through romantic suspense, then to cozy mystery, with an ecothriller with an alien twist series along the way. As my reading and writing tastes shifted, my muse wanted to write in the paranormal lane. It was a terrible quandary for me. After all, how could I write about something scary?

The urge to write in this lane kept tugging at me. So, I took several deep breaths and seriously considered it. Was it possible I could write scary scenes? After all, I was pretty firmly entrenched in the cozy mystery lane by now, and in this genre violence and big scares (like a murder) happened off the page. Hmm. This might be just the thing for me.

My first paranormal series, The Dreamwalker Mysteries, was based on a reluctant amateur sleuth who got messages from the dead in her dreams. In this story world, the communications were minor vignettes from the departed’s life. Also, the dead were not allowed to reveal who killed them, they could share information that would lead my sleuth to the truth. I didn’t think this was too scary, and I loved writing this sleuth. Eventually, after seven books, I’d made my sleuth very powerful and the stakes became super high. There was nowhere else to go after book seven.

Feedback from readers varied. For some, the Dreamwalker series was fine, and for others it was scary. That’s when I realized I wasn’t the only one who had a sliding scale of scary.

I dove into a three-book cozy culinary series to refresh my palette, but that urge to write another paranormal series came back stronger than ever. One of the paranormal beings that my Dreamwalker sleuth discovered was a group of energy vampires. Not the bloody kind, but the kind who steals your energy. You’ve probably known some people like this because when you get away from them you are exhausted.

For my new series, I wanted to update them from energy vampires to energetics. I wanted to write about twins in Savannah, GA, who could siphon your energy but they also shared their energy with friends and family. That story world sounded like it would fit my “safe” area of paranormal. So, I wrote A Magic Candle Shop Mystery series.

These books began releasing in the post-Covid era, and my new publisher signed me with the understanding I would write the Magic Candle series under a pen name. I chose the name of the small fishing community where I grew up as my first name and the name of another town in our county for my last name to become Valona Jones.

Now I have five books in the series (Snuffed Out, In the Wick of Time, Tallowed Ground, Candle with Care, and Flamed Out), and I have taken this sleuth as far as I want to go. Feedback from this series has been about the characterization and the plots, with both of them receiving high marks. Even so, some said this series was just the right amount of scary, while others said the stories scared them.

I’ve concluded it’s difficult to get the right level of scary for everyone. What I can do is fully integrate the paranormal with the characters and plot so that everything hinges on each other. In that way, my stories are accessible and enjoyable even to people like me with a lower threshold for scary.

Here’s a way to determine what level of scary is right for you:
1. I’m not scared. But, eyes are wide and you brace for what comes next.
2. This bothers me. Biting your nails and jiggering your leg but can’t stop now.
3. I’m scared, but I can take it. Grabbing the person next to you, heart racing. Adrenaline rush.
4. Fear takes root. I’m scared, and I like it. Covering your eyes and peeping through anyway
5. Purely panicked. Too scared to move, thinking about running home, but enjoying the fright rush.

From my perspective, my Dreamwalker cozies are in the two category and the Magic Candle Shop cozies are closer to one than two. Don’t just take my word for it—check them out and see for yourself!

You can click here to purchase this book from Amazon.

To enter to win a copy of Flamed Out, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “flamed out” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen October 25, 2025. U.S. residents only, and you must be 18 or older to enter. If entering via email please include your mailing address in case you win. You can read our privacy statement here if you like.

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Southern author Maggie Toussaint writes cozy and paranormal mysteries under her name and a pen name of Valona Jones, romantic suspense, and dystopian fiction under the pen name of Rigel Carson, with more than 30 novels of fiction published. Her recent release, Flamed Out, book five in A Magic Candle Shop Mysteries, is a cozy paranormal written as Valona Jones. A multi-year finalist for Georgia Author of the Year, she’s won Silver Falchions, Readers’ Choice awards, and the EPIC Award. She’s a member of Mystery Writers of America-Southeast chapter and Sisters In Crime-Guppy chapter. She lives in coastal Georgia, where secrets, heritage, and ancient oaks cast long shadows. Visit her at maggietoussaint.com

Disclosure: This post contains links to an affiliate program, for which we receive a few cents if you make purchases. KRL also receives free copies of most of the books that it reviews, that are provided in exchange for an honest review of the book.