I have arisen from my frantic book-a-day holiday reading challenge to bring you a long overdue review! Earlier this year, I picked up Payback's A Witch by Lana Harper on a whim - the cover was beautiful so I obviously had to have it. I fell in love with the story and immediately pre-ordered the second book in the series, From Bad to Cursed. And now, I have been incredibly lucky to receive an ARC of the third book in the series, Back in a Spell.
Back in a Spell is third in a series of interconnected stand-alone stories in Lana Harper's Witches of Thistle Grove series. This book follows Nina Blackmoore who goes on a journey of rediscovering herself after her best friend pushes her to get over her ex-fiancée by setting up a date with Morty Gutierrez, someone who is decidedly not Nina's type at all. The date goes about as well as can be expected, especially after Morty finds out that Nina is a Blackmoore - the family trying to buy his family's bar out from under them. The next morning, Morty finds that he has developed some new magical abilities and Nina's own powers have surged in strength.
When I say that these are interconnected stand-alone stories, I truly mean it. Even though Payback's A Witch and From Bad to Cursed come before Back in a Spell in the series, you can easily read them out of order or only read one of them and still completely understand the story. The later books do have spoilers for the ones ahead of them, so if you plan to read the entire series, I highly recommend reading them in order. Each book has it's own beautiful story for you to dive into and can stand on its own, but they are even more magical when read together as a series.
After reading the first two books and getting a certain impression of the Blackmoore family, I was a little hesitant heading into book three with a Blackmoore at the helm. Turns out, I had nothing to fear. Nina is a breath of fresh air that that feels so vastly different from her family in the best way. While she still exhibits some qualities that are often associated with the Blackmoore family, she is definitely painted as the catalyst for change to come.
Morty. Morty Morty Morty. I don't know what to say about Morty. He is such a sweet soul and exactly the kind of person that I would never imagine with a Blackmoore, which makes this story even more compelling. From their first interaction, you can see that both carry a lot of baggage - individually and as part of their respective families. The more time they spend together, the more it made me believe in magic and love. I loved Nina, I loved Morty, and I loved all of Morty and Nina's interactions with each other, the good and the bad.
This story dealt with so many things and they were juggled so well. Generational trauma, emotional abuse, lost identity, feeling weak and lonely - a lot of things that people could relate to. The journey that Nina takes to figure out what is going on with her powers, with Morty, with her family...it develops in such a natural way. Lana has a way of writing where I don't feel like I'm reading about a fictional world - I felt like I was listening to a friend describe something that happened to them. It was truly magical.
Since Thistle Grove (the specific side of Thistle Grove we see) is a community of witches from the same four founding families, it didn't surprise me that we saw some familiar faces from the previous two books. There are two specific characters from the previous books that resurfaced in this one and Lana was able to show even more character growth from them in some small, but impactful scenes. Nina was always the main character and had a tremendous amount of growth and change (as main characters often do), but the supporting characters held their own and made me want even more stories with them at the forefront.
Each book in this series has varying levels of spice in it and it grows with each progressive story. The first book is fairly tame, the second book gets a little spicier, and the third is the spiciest of the bunch. As a big fan of spice myself, I am thoroughly enjoying the growth and hope the trend continues with the next book and beyond!
My ARC also came with a couple chapters of the next book in the series and, after having read those and the synopsis for the next book, it is easy to see in retrospect how Lana was able to start that next story in this one. I also have a head canon storyline that I've created based on some character growth in this book that I hope we'll see in later books as well.
Back in a Spell by Lana Harper hits shelves on January 3, 2023 and is available to preorder here. You can also pick up the first two books in the series, Payback's A Witch and From Bad to Cursed, here and here respectively.
Disclaimer: I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher for free and have voluntarily written this review. If you purchase a copy of any of the mentioned books using my Amazon affiliate links above, I will receive a small commission which will fuel my coffee and tea addiction and help to keep me up all night reading more books to recommend to you.
