Reviews with content warning for Blood - This Spells Love

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This Spells Love by Kate Robb

5 reviews

bzliz's review

funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

When Gemma’s 4 year long relationship suddenly ends, a margarita fueled “spell” cast by Gemma, her sister, her aunt, and her best friend Daxon misfires and sends Gemma to an alternate timeline where Dax has no memory of her. Her new life is better in some ways- she’s a successful small business owner rather than a tired buyer for a big chain store- and worse in others, namely that she doesn’t have Dax in her corner. Aunt Vivi advises her they have a month until they can try to reverse the effects. In that time, Gemma cultivates a relationship with Dax that leaves her wondering if they should’ve been together all along.

I like Aunt Vivi’s witchy vibes and the little glimpse at her weird book club. Gemma wasn’t my ideal MC. Her choice felt pretty obvious to me. It was interesting that the misguided spell

didn’t alter the flow of time. Gemma came into her new life missing a lot of knowledge and spent a month there, the returned to her time a month later and had to put the pieces together again.

I feel like that’s not often the case with timeline swap stories. I also wish the resolution was a little longer.

There is some spice in the book but it wasn’t my favorite. It felt weirdly clinical and then I felt even worse when I saw the author calling out her husband in the acknowledgments for his inspiring genitalia. The steam leading up to the spice was better and I felt the tension building up between them. I wish it had been left at that or that the author had a better editor for those scenes.

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haleysversion's review against another edition

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funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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markedwithanm's review

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emotional funny lighthearted reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

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mari1532's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I want to thank Netgalley and Random House for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I have started this book review several times and honestly, I think I had such a hard time writing this review because I was truly ambivalent about this book. I didn’t hate the book and I thought that Robb’s writing style was excellent and funny. However, I didn’t like Gemma (as a person, she was well-written) or Dax (I think this was more a lack of understanding of who he was in both timelines).

This book had lowkey 13 Going on 30 vibes throughout which I liked and I did think that their ending was lovely. However, my favourite part of the book was Kiersten, Gemma’s sister. She was funny and well-rounded and always gave the best advice. I wanted her to be my older sister. I do think that my love of Kiersten’s character is part of why I did not end up liking Gemma as much. I think in many respects their relationship highlighted Gemma’s self-absorption throughout the book.

I also think that Gemma’s donut (and to a lesser extent food) habits at the beginning of the book made me judge her as a person. I understand having a comfort food or neurodivergence about ordering specific things at specific restaurants, but the description of Gemma’s donut (food habits) does not fall into either category. She appears to have grown into such a rut in her life that she never tries a different kind of donut (or anything for that matter) even though it is a specialty shop she visits. I understand trying to highlight that Gemma never takes risks. Still, she seems so paralyzed by something negative happening (which might be an anxiety disorder) that she rarely deviates from her routine because she knows she likes something and/or it’s safe. I do feel a bit like Robb took it a bit too far.

[This is a sidebar, but as a way to highlight how Robb’s writing created imagery and sensory experiences, I’m going to highlight the donuts. Kiersten takes Gemma to the local donut shop and orders the “surprise me special” while Gemma only orders apple fritters. The way that Robb wrote about what these donuts looked like, smelled like, and tasted like made me go on a donut run before I finished the book.]

It is much harder to pin down how I feel about Dax. I feel like I didn’t get to know enough about him as a person in one timeline before I met him in another. And some aspects of him in the one timeline where he featured a bit more made him feel a bit like he suffers from toxic masculinity (see Gemma’s CVS purchase). I get that his life was in a bit of turmoil, but he lacked effective communication skills. It was also hard to go from one version of Dax that I didn’t like, back to the one that Gemma was in love with.

also struggled with the ethics of Gemma’s time travelling and having all these experiences with Dax and then just acting like every first was a first in the other timeline. When he said “I’ve waited 4 years to kiss you” it was kind of heartbreaking because she had been making out with him for weeks.

Also, in terms of the time travel. Is Aunt Livi a witch? Is her book club a coven? Why were there so many clues that indicated this, but were never picked up again?

Overall, if you enjoy well-written romance novels, I would recommend this book. However, if you want to be able to identify with or like the characters in the book, I cannot give you a recommendation because I did not walk away feeling that way. And while some loose ends were tied up quite nicely between the timelines I was left with several questions that are just left unanswered.

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torturedreadersdept's review against another edition

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funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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