Back in a Spell (The Witches of Thistle Grove)

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But she can’t hide from the fact that, with modern devices offering modern solutions to dating, they’re losing business, no matter how much care and consideration they take in making matches. Nina is an impressive protagonist - she's not always likeable, and in fact makes a couple of pretty objectively awful decisions. Nina’s brother, Gareth, is the antagonist of Payback’s a Witch and while Nina isn’t as hated as him, the family is all painted with a pretty negative brush throughout the series thus far.

No missing or damaged pages, no creases or tears, no underlining or highlighting of text, and no writing in the margins. This set-up feels like two people are forced to be together without consenting to the relationship (because if a spell/hex/unknown power is causing you to do something, can you really say yes or no? However, between the extremely disappointing nonbinary representation and other narrative decisions, Back in a Spell ended up leaving me cold instead of cozy.A novel does not need to be an identity story to have respectful inclusion of someone’s identity in meaningful ways. Olivia and Bennett, having grown up in mixed families, are still learning the traditions themselves, just like I am. I almost wanted to knock Olivia over the head and get her to see sense, but she’s quite a stubborn character almost right up to the end.

My main thing is that with her other books you could understand the characters' motivations and things but sometimes Nina made decisions that were so weird to me. If he's genderfluid (he/him pronouns are used though he's fine with they/them as well) why are we using his dick as a character trait? An awkward first date leads to a sparkling romance between one of the most powerful witches in town and a magical newbie in this rom-com by Lana Harper, New York Times bestselling author of Paybacks a Witch. The characters were so true to themselves, there was some great character growth, there were amazing strides taken, and it all came together spectacularly.

It’s rooted in a traditional society with people on the fringes who are pushing for something different. Reeling from heartbreak, a witch finds new love with someone entirely unexpected and has to decide who she truly wants to be. It grows and breathes just like the characters, and I’m excited to see what the revelations and all the other changes to the witch community will mean for future books.

The entire novel, including every character and all of Nina’s internal thoughts, default Morty to ‘he’. My name is Jay and I started this blog because I love to read and wanted a place to share my thoughts with other readers and lovers of romance. It has that classic enemies-to-lovers feel, but the failed date at the beginning added a little something extra. The same Morty who owns a bar that Nina’s family—with her help—has been aggressively trying to purchase out from under. On that front, I ended up very pleased, but, as this is also a romance, I was disappointed with the sheer predictability.Giorgina is a working class woman who wants to do something to help women, so is pulled towards Malak with some help from a friend. In fact, aside from the initial pronoun and gender scene/discussion and one very short scene later with Morty’s family… it feels like this novel was conceptualized and drafted as a queer M/F romance and amended to be nonbinary in retrospect. Harper has consistently created stories and characters that deal with complex issues all while delivering intricate fantasy and steamy romance.

What would have really helped is having chapters from Morty to get some of their perspective, though I understand the decision was probably made to follow the single POV format of the other Thistle Grove novels.Berkley Publishing Group and Lana Harper provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley. I loved that they had their own personalities and I always felt the hint of a greater complexity to them. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. I don’t want to give away too much about what is really happening, as that is something that unfolds over the course of the book, but it is a new aspect of the magical world we haven’t really delved into before and it was fun to explore. A year after her fiance dumped her, she’s finally ready to move on and at the encouragement of her friend, she tries a dating app.