If you’re tired of the witch books, I’m sure the craze will end soon, and we’ll go back to the random book loving soon…though I make no guarantees. Anyway, onto the show.
During the early stages of my current witch book phase, I was pursuing the romance shelf at my local Barnes & Noble, and found a whole collection of magical love stories, but didn’t purchase all of them. I did make a list, though, and found some of those books in other forms, one of them being Jessica Clare’s Go Hex Yourself. I did not try this one right away because it is an enemies-to-lovers story, and although the second commandment of being a lady reader is Thou shalt worship at the altar of enemies-to-lovers stories, I turned it away. Despite my typical dislike of that oft-loved trope, I decided to just see where it went, because witches.
Reggie Johnson thinks she is interviewing to work for her favorite card game, Spellcraft: The Magicking, but it turns out she is actually a candidate to become assistant to Drue Magnus. But Drue does not need just any assistant: she needs a familiar. Drue is a witch and requires a human familiar to provide more energy during more complex spellcasting. Reggie finds herself thrown into a wild world of curse tablets and potions and unique ingredients, all the while getting to know Drue and her standoffish nephew, Ben. Despite the initial bad blood between Reggie and Ben, Drue’s spellwork keeps throwing them together, and that tension slowly becomes something a little more delicious…
It was refreshing to pick up a book where the main character was not a witch and magic is not an immediate fact of life. It’s cute watching Reggie try to explain all the magic happening around her, to the point that she thinks she’s landed in a town-wide reenactment. And when she finally gets the hint, you cannot help but laugh at her brief descent into madness, especially considering the magic she is under when it happens.
Reggie gets paid $15,000 or so a month just to be a familiar, which sounds like the greatest thing any underpaid, starving twenty-something could hope for. But as she gets deeper into the actual familiar work, she becomes drained and sluggish, not really feeling like herself anymore.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though, since Drue is a motherly, if ditsy, employer to Reggie. Reggie even begins to consider Drue to be a surrogate aunt, since her parents were useless con-artists who never did anything decent for their daughter. And Penny, the enthusiastic magic store employee who becomes Reggie’s first friend in the witch community, is another fun addition to the cast.
So where does that leave Ben? I think any seasoned reader can gather from the book’s summary exactly what kind of character he was going to be. Tragic backstory, check. Handsome rugged features, check. A reputation for being one of the nastiest warlocks in town, check. A vulnerable side that only Reggie and Drue, but especially Reggie, can bring out of him, check. Heck, there’s even a town gossip mill spreading lies about murder and cruelty about him, just to add insult to injury. Little wonder that Reggie doesn’t like him at first but soon finds him sexy.
Not sure I find him particularly sexy myself, though.
Sure, he does warm up to Reggie and his soft side is softer than a teddy bear’s tummy, but I suppose he would be serviceable to anyone looking for a hunk of broody, leave-me-alone-I’m-too-terrible-for-this-wretched-world stuff.
I think he also finds himself too quickly attracted to Reggie. Their connection just doesn’t ring as true as it could, and they go I’d-do-anything-for-you-my-love too quickly and too hard.
This is probably the raunchiest, sexiest book of the bunch so far, so you’ll get your fair share of naughty scenes, especially close to the end.
In terms of magical enjoyment, this one is a little lower on the list. It’s still entertaining and there is plenty of magic, but I think I would sooner reread other magical rom-coms.
The Library Key 