A Tourist’s Guide to Black Sands
The Magical Town of Reg Rawlins
Black Sands, Florida: The Magical Town of Reg Rawlins
If Black Sands had a visitor center, the brochure would probably say something like: come for the weather, stay because of the magic. This fictional Florida town is home to witches, psychics, warlocks, vampires, werewolves, fairies, naiads, and plenty of other supernatural residents who would rather not explain themselves to outsiders.
Black Sands is the home of Reg Rawlins, Psychic Investigator, and the heart of the paranormal cozy mystery series that bears her name. Reg arrives in town looking for a temporary place to stay and discovers a community where being psychic isn’t considered unusual—and where magic creates as many problems as it solves.
The supernatural isn’t a special event here. It’s just the humid, everyday reality. People still need somewhere to eat, shop, meet friends, argue with their neighbors, and conduct the occasional clandestine magical transaction. Black Sands just has rather more interesting clientele than the average Florida town.
A Florida Town with a Supernatural Population
Black Sands looks ordinary enough at first. There are cottages and shops, cafés and bars, quiet residential streets, and the subtropical landscape you would expect in Florida. But look a little closer and the differences start to show.
The woman behind the counter may be a witch. The bartender might be a vampire. Your herbalist could be a naiad. Your neighbor may have been holding a grudge since before your grandparents were born.
Some residents were born into the magical world. Others found their way to Black Sands because they needed somewhere they could live without hiding what they were. That gives the town an unusual mixture of secrecy and community. People guard their own histories closely, but everybody seems to know everybody else’s business.
Places to Visit in Black Sands
The Crystal Bowl
The Crystal Bowl is the heart of Black Sands’ paranormal community and a regular gathering place for the witches. Its interior is a wild “cross between an opium den and a carnival fortune-teller set,” with heavy tapestries in black, red, and gold creating an atmosphere that makes it immediately clear this isn’t the neighborhood sports bar.
Grab a draft from Bill, the vampire-pale bartender, and keep your ears open. You’re likely to overhear anything from coven gossip to reports of the latest spiritual disturbance. For Reg, the Crystal Bowl is also a useful place to find information—assuming the people who have it are willing to talk.
The Pill and Dill: Harmony Health and Herbs
When Sarah Bishop or her coven sisters need remedies, they head to Harmony Health and Herbs, better known locally as the Pill and Dill. It’s an extraordinarily calm shop, with a waterfall feature that mutes the outside world and a Himalayan salt lamp adding to the peaceful atmosphere.
The shop reflects the way Black Sands mixes the mundane and magical without worrying much about the distinction. Whether you need a standard painkiller or feverfew and chamomile for a magical migraine, Misty the naiad has you covered.
The Hexed Hogshead
If you want atmosphere and don’t mind a bit of noise—or if you have business that’s better conducted in the shadows—the Hexed Hogshead is your spot. Darker and seedier than the Crystal Bowl, it caters to people who prefer to be left alone and expect everyone else to mind their own business.
It’s the kind of place where you might find a warlock and a werewolf sharing a table even if their people are technically at war. Alliances in Black Sands can get complicated.
Sarah Bishop’s Guest Cottage
This one isn’t actually open to tourists. Sarah Bishop’s cozy backyard guest cottage becomes Reg Rawlins’s home and the base from which she investigates some of Black Sands’ strangest mysteries.
Sarah takes security seriously. The property is protected by magical wards involving such innocent-looking objects as millet bird feeders and wind chimes. Reg’s own magical training is somewhat less controlled, and she has a habit of accidentally setting things on fire. Visitors are advised to stand back.
Gingerbread Lane Bakery
Black Sands prefers to keep its secrets tucked away, but the smell of Gingerbread Lane Bakery is impossible to ignore. From gooey cinnamon rolls to the famous Mystical Morsels truffles, the bakery provides the town with plenty of temptation.
Just one warning: when someone in Black Sands describes food as “addictive,” you might want to establish whether they’re speaking figuratively before taking another bite. Enchantments and baked goods are not always kept as separate as health inspectors might prefer.
The Witches’ Brew
Even supernatural residents need coffee. The Witches’ Brew is part of the ordinary rhythm of Black Sands: a place to get something to drink, meet someone, pick up the latest gossip, or discover that an apparently routine day is about to become considerably less routine.
What Is It Like to Live in Black Sands?
What makes Black Sands work as more than a backdrop is that it feels lived-in. Its residents have friendships, rivalries, families, businesses, opinions, and sometimes hundred-year-old feuds. Magic doesn’t replace ordinary life; it complicates it.
You might buy a used car from a warlock named Wilf who magically knows exactly what you want. Detective Marta Jessup might spend one day dealing with ordinary vandalism and the next worrying about endangered swamp goblins. A problem that initially looks supernatural may have a perfectly mundane explanation—and something that looks completely ordinary may turn out to have been enchanted.
There are also rules. Magical communities have their own expectations, traditions, politics, and conflicts, and Reg frequently discovers those rules only after she has broken one. Being able to see or sense something supernatural doesn’t mean she understands it.
Why Black Sands Matters to Reg Rawlins
When Reg first comes to Black Sands, she doesn’t arrive as a powerful psychic investigator. She has spent much of her life surviving by reading people, moving on when necessary, and being suspicious of anyone who claims to know what’s best for her. She doesn’t even believe in magic.
Black Sands changes that. The abilities Reg has always treated as instincts or useful tricks are recognized by the people around her as something more. She meets people who understand powers she doesn’t understand herself, and gradually becomes part of a community she never intended to join.
That sense of belonging is as important to the series as the paranormal mysteries. Black Sands is full of witches, psychics, shapeshifters, magical creatures, and people who don’t fit comfortably anywhere else. Many of them have found a place here precisely because they’re different.
Magic, Mysteries, and the Unexpected
Black Sands gives every Reg Rawlins mystery two questions to answer. There is the obvious one—what happened?—and then there is the supernatural one: what is actually possible?
A psychic vision might be a clue, but interpreting it is another matter. A magical object may be dangerous, useful, misunderstood, or all three. Someone’s supernatural abilities can help solve a crime without making them innocent of it. Reg still has to investigate, question people, recognize lies, and figure out which pieces fit.
And Black Sands keeps getting bigger. What begins as Reg discovering one strange Florida community gradually opens onto a much larger magical world populated by creatures, cultures, histories, and conflicts she never knew existed.
Visit Black Sands in the Reg Rawlins Mysteries
If you’re new to Black Sands, you can start at the beginning with What the Cat Knew, where Reg arrives in town and begins discovering exactly what kind of place she has stumbled into.
If you already know Reg, Sarah, Starlight, and the rest of the Black Sands crowd and want the book that leans hardest into the world’s dragon side, The Hidden Hoard of Drakuntsee takes the adventure far beyond Florida to a secret dragon colony in China.
Or explore the Reg Rawlins, Psychic Investigator series and take the full tour of Black Sands—preferably without touching anything that glows, growls, whispers your name, or comes with a warning from Sarah.
FAQs
Where is Black Sands, Florida?
Black Sands is the fictional Florida town at the center of the Reg Rawlins, Psychic Investigator paranormal mystery series by P.D. Workman. It is home to a large supernatural community of witches, psychics, warlocks, vampires, werewolves, fairies, and other magical beings.
Is Black Sands a real town in Florida?
No. Black Sands is a fictional town created for the Reg Rawlins, Psychic Investigator series. Its subtropical Florida setting provides the backdrop for Reg’s investigations and the supernatural community she gradually becomes part of.
Who is Reg Rawlins?
Reg Rawlins is a psychic investigator and the protagonist of the Reg Rawlins, Psychic Investigator series. She arrives in Black Sands skeptical of magic and gradually discovers that abilities she has relied on throughout her life are genuine psychic powers.
What kinds of supernatural characters live in Black Sands?
Black Sands is home to witches, psychics, warlocks, vampires, werewolves, fairies, naiads, magical creatures, and other supernatural residents. Magic is part of everyday life in the town rather than something hidden entirely from the local community.
Which Reg Rawlins book introduces Black Sands?
What the Cat Knew, the first book in the Reg Rawlins, Psychic Investigator series, introduces Reg to Black Sands and its magical community.
