My Review: 

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Spells for Lost Things follows Willow and Mason, two teens struggling to find their place in their lives, as they search for information on Willow's family curse and Mason searches for his mother.  And of course, they end up falling for each other too.

Coming into this book, I was so excited.  I wanted to love it will all my heart, especially after enjoying Love & Gelato and Love & Olives so much.  But the more I read, I just—couldn't.  There was nothing special or endearing about Willow and Mason.  I felt bad for them at times, but I just couldn't really get myself to care for them.  I understand that each of them are going through things far harder than I ever have, but that did nothing to make me like them.  I had HUGE issues with the pacing of the romance too.  I was 50% into the book when they started talking to each other, and their relationship was so insta-lovey.  I was really upset because Jenna Evans Welch had always written solid romances before. 

Without any spoilers, the curse didn't make much sense to me and all the reveals were very anti-climatic.  I also didn't understand the witchcraft going on in the book.  Not only did I internally groan every time the witch-aunts came into the scene (and whenever they were referred to as the aunties every other page), but I didn't understand them.  Welch might have been going for a more loose, interpret-this-how-you-will conclusion with their magic, but it didn't feel like that to me.  Instead, it felt like Welch wanted to break away from her normal realistic fiction, but just couldn't.  Because I read an ARC (thanks, Netgalley!), there were multiple grammar and formatting errors that made it a bit confusing to read, but other than the writing was fine, the style similar to that of her other works.

Another thing I also wasn't a fan of was the huge info-dumps that the author dropped on you in the first few chapters.  I found it extremely annoying that Welch didn't trust us to read into all the other hints and clues she dropped in the book to flesh out the story of Mason and Willow's lives.  Besides that, the pacing was all off and the romance completely rushed (along with the other relationships in the book).  It did get better near the end, but not enough to redeem the beginning in my mind, so I rounded 2.5 down to 2. 

I could go on, but I don't want to dissect it much more.  As a last side note, I would also like to point out for anyone curious that this book has nothing to do with the Salem Witch Trials.  I was interested to see if Welch would tie it in because she chose that specific setting, but in the end she didn't.

I'll give any more books Jenna Evans Welch writes a try, but this just was not it for me.

Thank you NetGalley, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, and Jenna Evans Welch for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! I’ve been wanting to read Love & Gelato for a long time and once I was approved for this one I immediately started reading it. This is such a cute book that follows our two main characters, Willow and Mason, as they’re both in Salem, Massachusetts for different reasons.

Willow is a great character and I could really relate to her desire to travel the world. Her family is also very fascinating and unique and their connection with witchcraft and Salem was so fascinating! The mystery aspect was also really fun and getting to read the letters from Willow’s mysterious aunt Sage.

Mason has had a really sad childhood, but it’s heartwarming to see him start to connect with his new foster family in Salem. His relationship with Willow also progresses in a really cute way and I liked how they both started to open up to one another. It’s obvious that they have a lot of chemistry and help each other a lot which was great to see.

Overall, this is a great YA book. It has romance, but also complicated family relationships, a little bit of witchcraft, and a mystery. I highly recommend this one!

Willow, disgruntled teenager coming off a recent divorce between her parents heads to Salem, MA after learning of her mother’s long lost family and ancestral home.

While there, she meets up with Mason, a lonely foster kid. They work together to learn more about Willow’s family, spells involved of course, and become closer in the mean time.

I’m always surprised with the secret family plots, so I didn’t love the aspect. Mason’s foster care, mother having addiction issues came across more realistic and Interesting to me.

Unfortunately, the characters didn’t spark much chemistry and the story moved slow/dragged on at times.

Spells for Lost Things was a heartfelt and magical read that all book lovers are bound to enjoy! I'm not a huge romance reader but Jenna Evans Welch always makes her romances filled with wanderlust and adventure and I absolutely love it! Salem was such a cool setting for this story and I love how detailed the author got with everything witchy! I really enjoyed the mystery surrounding the Bell family and Mason's journey as well. I loved how he was into astronomy and she was a soul made for wanderlust. The mermaid painting was one of my favorite things about this book and the author made it really whimsical and I loved it. Overall this was just a really cool heartfelt read with so many things I loved in it! This is going to be a wonderful fall read!

This book cannot be sent to Kindle so it is unreadable. :( It is impossible to read just a pdf so please make this into a format that can be read via Kindle.