This cover is so alluring! I loved the previous works of Avery Flynn. When I heard she tried another genre, plotting a YA fantasy romance, I was so curious to devour it!

But unfortunately, this story, the entire world building, the characters didn’t work with me. I tried to get into the main plot but I’m overwhelmed with too much extra information. The Council, The Resistance, The Misfits, the double agents, goblins, trolls etc. Instead of giving us a well described world building, the author directly pushes us into the universe and filling our brains with too much details as if she has to finish this book as fast as she can do for starting another one!

Even though there’s so many information, the book is not long enough for us to absorb all of them.

The main characters are victims of enemies to lovers trope who have blind dates for three times which end with disastrous consequences.

Tilda Sherwood is member of powerful family of witches with no magical ability. She’s outre, outsider of her community, getting used to pitying looks of everyone.

Gil Connolly is super jerk, know it all archenemy who is forced to date with Tilda for his secret agenda. He is double agent working for both Resistance and Council. The Council has his family as captives and he’s reluctantly working with him to save them. He’s secretly scrutinizing her to give reports to the spies. Both of sides want him find some information about Tilda to dethrone the Sherwood family.

And he realizes Tilda is not a simple outre without any magical power. Because she’s more than that. And her family keeps her powers secret to protect her.

Now Tilda accidentally glitches her sister’s spell and curses her whole family. Only one can help her to break the curse is her nemeses/ crush Gill. They have to work together to save them families and they try to resist the attraction they feel for each other.

Overall: it’s still fast reading. I hope there would be more elaborated world building. I didn’t like the characters either. So I’m giving my solid three stars! It was still easy to read and enjoyable but I was expecting a little more!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.

This was a hard one. Based on the synopsis and the cover and the over all vibe I should have loved it, but I found it boring and predictable. The two character’s POV we see aren’t super distinct - they read in the same voice. I also just didn’t connect with either of the main characters which always makes a book hard for me.
Overall: it’s good for a quick, light afternoon read, it just wasn’t for me.

Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this book. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

My main piece of advice for this one is to download the kindle sample on pub day and see if the style is for you! It didn’t quite work for me because it’s not me preferred style, but it may be yours!

Fourth wall breaks, quippy asides in parentheses, and so many rhetorical questions dominated the prose. I would’ve appreciated more dialogue and less details.

✨

This book didn’t quite seem to know what it wanted to be. It was all at once a contemporary witch romance, dystopian romance, and heist plot. The world-building was lackluster and very confusing. I can’t help but get caught up on things like that. It was very confusing to know how much of the modern world (as we know it) existed and how much paranormal/fantasy/dystopian vibes regular humans got on the daily. People were literally exiled and tortured??? But the Super Bowl is still a thing? Also I couldn’t even begin to tell you why they were enemies?

✨

There were some incongruities, however, that could maybe be revised. Her boobs were like ten different sizes, the first sex scene was damn near impossible, and Gil kept saying “I got you” but “I’ve got you” just reads better. He sounded like he was trying to be a hip grandpa. He got you what??? Also a lot of words and phrases were continuously repeated (top of mind is ever-loving hell).

I was especially sad about the boobs bc most curvy* characters have chests way bigger than me, so I felt seen! And then a few chapters later they were full and outlining her sweatshirt and it just seemed like a different message.

*The book uses curvy so that’s what I’m going with here! I knows there’s discussion about the word compared to the representation on the page, so we got thick, dimpled thighs and a soft stomach.

✨

I did really like the sex scenes, as they were explicit and a little dirty. They were also creative, except that may be a detriment for poor Tilda because sweet Jesus the strength she must’ve exerted to piston herself up and down, both feet on the wall, while HE was pressed up against it????

✨

Overall, I’m just not the audience for this book. Not a lot about it really worked for me, but I can see the bones of a story that would. If this were a movie, I’d totally jump its bones. The concept for book 2 sounds very fun, I love a good Vegas moment.

There’s a hard balance to strike between romance and paranormal in order to make a successful book that is both romance and magic. I think the author has definitely tried their best, but there was a LOT to take in. Perhaps if this is part of a series then the info dump will pay off, but ultimately the system behind the magic needs to be more accessible to the reader. I did think the book was decent and would recommend it, but it didn’t give me a WOW factor.

I was so excited for this based on the cover alone, and while it didn’t disappoint, it definitely didn’t live up to any expectations I had for it.

I think my biggest issue with this book is that there’s just too much going on. This is clearly a world the author has fully fleshed out in their head, but there’s still some missing pieces on the page. The different ways to be magic (produce magic?) and their hierarchy are underdeveloped, there’s a secret cabal kind of thing whose raison d’etre I was kind of lost on, there’s some banishments… there’s just a lot. Additionally, I really hate a plot that hinges on “we didn’t tell you, our family member, this giant secret that is important to you for reeeeeasons.” Everyone’s an adult! Give them the information necessary to make their own choices for their future and safety.

I was way more interested in Tilda’s group of like magical outcasts than I was in her relationship with Gil or the actual plot of the book, which I guess doesn’t bode well for me liking the rest of the series. I’ll give the next one a try, though!

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

While I was fascinated with the premise for this book and I did enjoy it well enough, there were many aspects about this book that I struggled with. Firstly, I just didn't love the voice it was told in. It may work for other people, but I just couldn't get into it. Secondly, the pacing was super wonky. And thirdly, there was just way too much information presented! While I do firmly believe that witchy romances should have plenty of magic, this book really just jumped into this magical world and presented lots of terms without much in the way of explanation. I just couldn't really get a handle on this world. I may still give the next book a try though, just to see if things pull together a little bit better.