Do I pretend that it hasn't been nearly six months since I posted a blog?

Yes? No?

Where does the time go?

Speaking of time, I had an absolutely lovely time reading Breanne Randall's next home run, SPELLS, STRINGS, AND FORGOTTEN THINGS. So let's overlook my long blogging hiatus while I tell you about it.

Calliope Petridi lives in a beautiful, old, magical manor with her sisters, Thalia and Eurydice, after their mother pretty much abandons them as children. Luckily for all of them, Thalia was a teenager at the time, and assumed the role of parent. (As an eldest sister, I relate to Thalia in my bones.) Calliope, who was very young when their mother left, is much more of a free spirit. She is chaos to Thalia's order, messy to Thalia's tidy, her opposite in every way. Eurydice, bless her, is the mediator between the two. Together, the sisters run a bookshop cafe in Gold Springs, and are secretly Lightcraft witches...who are also cursed.

Yes, cursed. The Petridi sisters are tasked with guarding the Dark Oak, and the immense power within, and cursed with their magic coming with a price: their memories. Any exertion of magic costs its caster a memory. Thalia never uses magic, and Eurydice uses it very sparingly, but Calliope? Calliope hands over memories like candy, willfully oblivious to the fact that it is very nearly destroying so many of her relationships.

After a series of sinister events, Calliope is convinced that the threads of magic the Petridi family has kept wrapped around the Dark Oak for generations is fraying, and, after a drunken night, she makes the mistake of going to the Dark Oak to inspect the magic herself. This lapse in judgment nearly costs Calliope her life--had it not been for Lucien Deniz. Lucien saves Calliope and inadvertently ties her life to his. Lucien is a Shadowcrafter to Calliope's Lightcraft, and needs the power within the Dark Oak that Calliope and her sisters will die to protect.

I so enjoyed this book! I feel like Breanne always does such a wonderful job of marrying "this" meets "that" (in this case, I got "PRIDE AND PREJUDICE," meets "Charmed," meets "PRACTICAL MAGIC") and her own twist to create something new that also feels familiar. It's at once so cozy, where you feel like you can just curl up in a corner of Lethe Manor and spend every day with the Petridi sisters, but also so high stakes that you'll be on the edge of your seat.

As an eldest daughter who related to Thalia so much, I spent a lot of this book wanting to shake Calliope. She's chaotic and at times so hard headed that you want to scream, "It's YOU, hi, you're the problem, it's YOU!" at her. If this girl would stop and think for 3.5 seconds, so many of her problems would never have existed!

I also really liked how diverse this book is. The main characters/cultures that come through are Greek, Turkish, and French, but there were so many other cultures referenced that you can tell that this book was written by someone who has seen and loved so many places on this Earth that aren't America alone. It's refreshing to see so many different ethnicities married together in a small town, where no one bats an eye at something "different" than them. I could feel the thought and heart that went into making Gold Springs such a magically special place to live. Plus, a Turkish Mr. Darcy, are you kidding?!

I often found myself laughing out loud, especially when it came to fandom references that the girlies will love. At one point, a character was described as "burdened with glorious purpose" (which is a Loki reference and my TikTok bio!), someone jokes that a female character has, "bewitched him, body and soul" (PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, anyone?) and so many more.

Of course, in true Breanne Randall style, this book comes with recipes. Which is good for her, otherwise I'd be filling up her DMs begging her to tell me how to make orange fairy cakes.

All in all, SPELLS, STRINGS, AND FORGOTTEN THINGS was a worthy read to bring me back to the blog! It's out March 4, 2025, but you can go ahead and preorder your copies here and here.

Maybe it won't take me 6 months to come back this time!

Love and mismatched socks,

Mandy

Disclaimer: I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and have voluntarily written this review with my honest feedback. If you purchase a copy using my Bookshop.org affiliate link above, I will receive a small commission and you'll support local indies! If you purchase a copy using my Amazon affiliate link above, I will receive a small commission which I will use to justify my literary addictions and to spoil my dogs (probably).