Reviews

Such a fun witchy read! I listened to the audiobook and the narrator, Any Landon, did such a phenomenal job bringing out all the depth and quirkiness of each character.

The story....well, I was sold as soon as started listening to the 5 octogenarian witches lol. I heard someone say it's like the Golden Girls x Practical Magical, and that was a pretty solid description.

This book has it all. It has all ages, races, LGBTQ+, and a solid story with excellent world building. The witty banter and at all the right times. A little bit of mystery and drama with lots of laughs.

The only reason it's not 5 stars is because I feel we were spoonfed a little too much vs letting the reader come to their own conclusions a bit (personal preference ofc) and at times the story felt a little convoluted.

Overall it was a super fun read for me and it was definitely entertaining.

Thank you Netgalley and Harlequin audio for my review copy.

All thoughts are my own and please remember, reading is subjective.

isabellabaker's review

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adventurous funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

anxious_emmy's review

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emotional funny lighthearted mysterious 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

4.5

anniebgood's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense fast-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? It's complicated

4.75

bookshelvesandtealeaves's review

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emotional funny fast-paced

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

3.0

This book is funny and crass and heartfelt. It’s not often you find books centring on the elderly and every time I read one, I feel a little spark of joy.

The characters in this book are all vibrant and unique and I had so much fun reading about them. Ursula’s love for Ruby in particular really tugged at my heartstrings.

The plot was okay. I wasn’t expecting anything exciting, but once there was talk of a heist, I think I started expecting a lot more than we were given. This almost felt like it should have been the sequel to the heist book.

I also found it kind of frustrating the way the author constantly spelled everything out for the reader instead of letting us come to our own conclusions. This was most noticeable when it came to the male characters all being misogynistic pricks. This was fairly evident in the text, and yet the author continued to describe their comments/actions as misogynistic when readers can come to that conclusion themselves, which was just frustrating to read.

A fun book that I think could have done with a little more fine tuning.

bizaleth's review

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emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

erin_napkin's review

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DNF at 36%. The writing and narrative of 'smash the patriarchy' was a bit obtuse and lacked nuance. It might be bordering on misandry rather than feminism (even without taking consideration of the nuance in the historical context of feminism). The author also interchanged the hairstyles of braids and locs at one point, which may have simply been an error since I only saw this once. I did enjoy Ruby's character and the concept of a gender queer witch who could change presentation and appearance. I also enjoyed the mystery unraveling of what happened 33 years ago as the book goes on. However, it unfortunately was not enough to keep me engaged with the text.

bookcasey's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

There are interesting elements to this book, but it’s very slow to get started, and having so many main characters means that they ended up pretty flat. The treatment of gender-fluidity isn’t great — the author’s note at the end about how “people like [character] need our allyship” probably gives you a good idea how. It’s well-intentioned and the premise is fun, but the characters largely come off as caricatures.

Note: The interjected “recipes” detract from the book and are especially annoying on audiobook. I’d suggest you skip them, and in case anyone needs to hear it: do not use essential oils to make lube!

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