Impractical Magic

Impractical Magic by Emily Grimoire
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was a mix of small town romance and a witchy mystery in a fun way!

Scarlett is returning home (aka the bed and breakfast her family owns) at the request of her eldest sister. Bad things are afoot in her small town that brings back all sorts of traumatic memories for Scarlett, since the last time they were tasked with fishing the town’s magic, her father ended up dead. She also had to abandon her childhood sweetheart, Nate, to run away to the mundane world. This weird witchy world is… definitely odd in an interesting way.

Scarlett and Nate were my favorite part of this book. They didn’t get enough romance time due o the life threatening magic issues they were forced to face, but what we did get was great. Scarlett has to work through buckets of problems in this book - her family issues, unspoken resentment, misunderstandings and blame, and also Scarlett’s magical self-confidence. All of this culminates in the book’s ending, which, while HEA-like, really took you on a journey to get there!

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Best Hex Ever

Best Hex Ever by Nadia El-Fassi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was an adorable paranormal romance that wove together wonderful friendships, family, and even a wedding with the perfect amount of spicy goodness.

Dina is a witch who owns a coffee shop/bakery. She’s got a great, supportive group of friends who encourage her to break through a hex that’s been placed on her. While she eagerly helps others find love or comfort, she herself can’t find the same without cursing whoever she is with. One failed relationship has cursed her love life, literally. When Scott, a local museum employee, stumbles into her shop, and subsequently her life, she knows she’s in trouble.

Scott, on the other hand, is smitten. These two do a great dance around one another until they are (shocker) stuck in a cabin together, forced to handle their attraction during a getaway wedding weekend. Loved everything about this story and the world that this author has built for the characters! What a refreshing and surprising story with, yes, an HEA.

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Fang Fiction

Fang Fiction by Kate Stayman-London
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a completely unexpected read! It takes a lot to surprise and engage me, having read a ton of paranormal romance, but this book really surprised me at every turn. While this book might not be for everyone, I loved the meta qualities and was ok with the darker elements.

Tess is somewhat naive when we meet her, new to grad school, making friends, and generally optimistic about life. Her love of a vampire series, Blood Feud, ties her to a larger fandom that ultimately becomes where she hides after a terrible thing happens. It turns out, however, that the vampires this series is based on are real and one of them needs her help getting back “home.” Of course, the books end up being unreliable narrators and Tess goes on a wild adventure directly into the pages of her favorite book.

I was completely addicted to this book from the start. Even with the darker tones sometimes expressed, it felt gritty and real and I loved it. The characters were fully formed and fun! Even the universe had neat unexpected lore thrown in. The outcome of the overall mystery was a surprise to me, which is always great, but it was the characters that I was rooting for. I’m not sure what I expected at the start, but this book won me over 100% by the finish!

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Demon’s Bluff

Demon's Bluff by Kim Harrison
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Rachel is infuriating. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love this crew of characters, but the way Rachel stumbles through life is so frustrating. This book, in particular, lands somewhere around 3.5 stars for me just because I struggled to motivate myself to pick this one up again when I stopped.

We join Rachel still in the thick of things like vampire politics. She’s still leading from her secret position behind the official vampire ruler and she is also still struggling with the curse she cast in the last book. Without a key component of the counter-curse, the coven is threatening to throw her in a cell. Elyse, the new leader of the coven, sets off a series of decisions that somehow makes it logical in Rachel’s mind to go back in time. It’s kind of hard to explain, but she needs to go on a solo trip back 5 years so she can get the missing piece of the counter-curse from the most powerful demon in existence.

Of course, things don’t go as expected. Not only are we left alone without our other familiar characters but she ends up with Elyse, who is probably the most annoying character in the series. It was a buddy adventure I never wanted to read, but somehow had to because there’s a true threat that Rachel can muck up the future if she changes too many things. Don’t worry, though, because there is a lot of hand waving that goes on to explain away just about everything. I wasn’t rooting for Rachel to fail or anything, but it was a truly frustrating read.

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Nick

Nick by Margo Bond Collins
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

We were briefly introduced to the Nick/Sarah drama at the end of the previous book, but I’m pretty sure you could start here and be just fine. There is so much hidden backstory that we are all moving through this missing pieces of their past.

Nick is a member of a healthy, happy pack, having run away from his previous one after being betrayed by his mate, the woman he trusted most. The book is a little light on the details, but somehow she convinced him he needed to leave, so he left and actually is in a safer pack now. When Sarah shows up at his table he knows he shouldn’t get involved, but agrees to help her deal with their toxic alpha, Vincent.

It’s always a little tricky with books that start without the backstory playing out for the reader. I know we are supposed to believe these two loved each other wildly and passionately before but all we know is that Sarah betrayed him. When Nick arrives back on pack lands again, he quickly realizes just how much she was hiding from him. Somehow he manages to set all that aside and rekindle their relationship, all while plotting to overthrow the current alpha. It all ends well, but felt very rushed. Don’t worry, though, because we get a HEA and a low key intro do the next book.

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My vampire plus-one

My Vampire Plus-One by Jenna Levine
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Oops, I dove into book 2 without reading book 1! I don’t think it really hurt me at all, but wanted to disclose that at the start. I found Reginald to be just weird enough to be lovable and Amelia’s organized life offered a wonderful balance to the chaos he lives in.

Amelia is a workaholic accountant focused on advancing her career and finding satisfaction there. The rest of her life has been a bit neglected, to the point where her family is very concerned about her perpetual single status. When yet another of her cousins gets engaged, she hastily lies about having a boyfriend to avoid the topic and is then somehow tasked with finding said imaginary mate. Reginald is on the run from eccentric vampires who believe he murdered their founding members. He’s also a vampire, but that doesn’t exempt him from their vengeance. While on the run, he literally runs into Amelia and thus begins their unlikely courtship.

These two are adorable and clueless in different ways. It was fun watching the sparks and insanity somehow lead us to a HEA. It was fun and sweet and sexy, too! All in all this was an entertaining introduction to this world. I might even go back and read book 1.

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Wicche Hunt

Wicche Hunt by Seana Kelly
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

These book are a rollercoaster of emotion, in a good way. The larger storyline gets some nudges forward, but the character development is where it’s at. With such incremental progress, I wish the whole series was out so I could binge my way straight through. I’ll have to just keep chipping away at the author’s pace, though.

Arwyn and Declan are doing the new couple thing in this book. He’s decided to stay, for all the drama it will bring to his life, and Arwyn is supporting him as best she can while also trying to open up her gallery. Having just officially joined the Corey Council, she’s also got that on her plate. Oh, and her detective friends still want her help solving cases that may or may not be tied to the Corey big bad or her cousin’s murderer. So many loose ends!

This book does give us some resolution in the form of her cousin’s killer, but a few more people have to die before they connect all the dots, which means a hellish couple days for Arwyn. On the family front, there is progress made in the mother-daughter bonding arena, but still oodles further to go. I absolutely can’t wait to see the father-daughter-mother dynamics play out in future books! With all the new characters and crazy times, it’s no wonder that we just keep getting nudges forward on the big bad resolution, but I’m still hoping that gets shut down sooner rather than later.

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