Magic Runs in the Family. So Do Secrets.

Set in the small town of Lancaster, Curses, Critters, and Other Complications opens a multigenerational witch saga with warmth, humor, and genuine emotional depth. The story unfolds through interconnected chapters, each told from a different character's perspective, building a richly layered portrait of a community where magic persists quietly beneath ordinary domestic life.

When Sara and her husband Nathan drop their daughters Krista (nearly nine) and Sammy (six) at grandmother Ellen's house for a long weekend, Sara is guarding a secret she has kept for nine years of marriage: witches run in her family. Ellen is a practicing witch with a telepathic cat familiar named Murgawth, and Sara has forbidden any mention of magic around Nathan.

Ellen quickly discovers that the girls' pet guinea pig, Ralph, is not a guinea pig at all. Murgawth identifies the creature as a shapeshifter under a powerful multi-layered curse. Ellen and her best friend Margie, also a witch, perform a "switcheroo," replacing the animal with a bespelled pygmy rabbit so the girls notice nothing. The freed creature is an imp, a small foul-mouthed shapeshifter bound by ancient service bands. Following a lead from Edward Milton, a non-witch from a prominent local witch family, Ellen and Margie are invited to tea by Esmerelda Gimpler, an elderly hag living in the north woods. Esmerelda explains that she cursed the imp into guinea pig form decades ago after it began shapeshifting into a miniature version of her despised ex-husband, then abandoned it at a pet shop. Impressed that Ellen broke her curse, she reclaims the imp. This encounter marks the beginning of a broader reconnection between isolated practitioners.

Great for readers who want the multigenerational witch family warmth of Practical Magic and the cozy small-town community charm of Jan Karon's The Mitford Series.