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Ellowyn continues to fuss around with her tea, in and out of bags. She takes different leaves from a selection of jars and pours hot water over them, so a fragrant cloud of steam rises up between us. I breathe it in and feel my shoulders relax. Slightly. I head for the curving narrow stairs that will take me up into the house’s turret. It’s never been my favorite part of the house—it makes me think of princesses and fairy tales and other embarrassingly romantic things that have no place in a practical, independent life—but it suits Georgie to the bone. Like it was made for her.
This is not in no way or no how a rom-com. There’s no romance, the authors have squashed all that with their “I am woman, hear me roar” rhetoric. We don’t even get a sex scene where we can settle into their intimacy and really connect with their connection. Instead we get a PSA about “….the glorification of sensuality…” and objectification. In their first sex scene!!! Where she’s a virgin!! And it’s been ten years coming!! 😳😳😳 This should have been the most touching, affectionate, heart eyed, swoony scene ever and then bam right in the middle we get feminist BS shoved down our throats, for like 100th time mind you. I am not eloquent enough to get across just how much my little romantic heart shriveled up during this scene. No one has civic pride quite like Emerson Wilde. As a local indie bookstore owner and youngest-ever Chamber of Commerce president, she’d do anything for her hometown of St. Cyprian, Missouri. After all, Midwest is best! She may be descended from a witch who was hanged in 1692 during the Salem Witch Trials, but there’s no sorcery in doing your best for the town you love. Maybe if the ages were as reflected in their behavior and the romance was dialed down a tad and this was sold as a YA or older middle grade, it would be higher ranking. I’m not sure that the authors love love or even understand love and romance after reading this one. They certainly did not understand the genre that they’ve been placed in. Maybe this is satire?!?
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That's not all, though: evil is lurking in the charming streets of St. Cyprian. Emerson will need to learn to control what's inside of her, remember her magic, and deal with old, complicated feelings for her childhood friend—cranky-yet-gorgeous local farmer Jacob North—to defeat an enemy that hides in the rivers and shadows of everything she loves. I tell myself it’s temper as I march down the hall toward the stairs. Jacob is maddening. I’ve spent years telling myself that every resistance—or community service project, call it what you will—needs a Jacob to point out the flaws in a plan. Every single flaw in every single plan, endlessly. I tell myself, as I often do, that Jacob is not a dour pessimist. He’s cool-headed and rooted in reality. Both necessary counterbalances to Ellowyn’s dark imaginings, Georgie’s airiness, Zander’s comedy routines, and what Jacob likes to call my delusions of grandeur. and I could tell you more, I could share every detail, I almost want to, but you know who I am by now. I'm not here for the objectification of women or men or the glorification of sensuality for consumer commodification" My father loves a Healer when he needs to be healed, of course. But witches can be as snobby as anyone else. Maybe more so, because we live longer and can summon our ancestors to personally teach us what they hated. Hashtag not all witches, etc., but for some, there is always a divide between the more intellectual designations and what my father has been known to call the blue collar witches.”
That said, in all likeliness it'll come out and I'll decide it's too exhausting and I'm no longer interested.) The more I think about it, honestly the more I hate it. What brings you to my lair this early in the morning?” she asks without looking at me. I know this is to give the impression that she divined my presence when it’s more likely she heard the creaky board out in the hallway. I sigh. “Yes, he will. He can’t resist. But I don’t want to fight him.” This time is implied. “I want to find a way to get through to him. Preferably without embarrassing him in front of the whole town.” That's not all, though: evil is lurking in the charming streets of St. Cyprian. Emerson will need to learn to control what’s inside of her, remember her magic, and ��deal with old, complicated feelings for her childhood friend--cranky-yet-gorgeous local farmer Jacob North—to defeat an enemy that hides in the rivers and shadows of everything she loves.Not in a paternalistic, condescending Skip Simon way. In a collaborative, it- takes- a- village way. I received an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review and thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity. Yes, I know. I also know that anytime you try to new and improve something in this town, the plague that is Skip Simon descends on you like the locust he is.”
My peers might have preferred Skip Simon’s bold and unlikely claims that he was a direct descendent of the outlaw Jesse James, but learning about Sarah changed my life. The reality of Sarah Emerson Wilde is that she was a fierce feminist who wanted to play by her own rules. A nonconformist who wasn’t interested in playing the perfect Puritan, and therefore a direct threat to the Powers That Be. Following her own rules, ignoring theirs, and trumpeting her independence got her killed. And we'll finish this off with the part that I still can not believe they actually put in this book. We get one almost sex scene in this "romance" book. One chapter where Jacob and Emerson are finally talking about their relationship and getting a little deeper into their romance. Now, I have no problem with a closed door book but this was something else entirely. All of the buildup to them hooking up is written and then you get this delightful quote: My position, then and now, is that when your always-problematic sister “loses” your favorite science teacher’s chinchilla, you can hardly be concerned about a dance. You initiate search and rescue, in a prom dress, because it’s the poor, lost chinchilla that matters. And given that I was the one who found Mr. Churchilla, you’d think Skip would have forgiven me. I smile even more broadly. If there was an award for best flyer, that one would win it. But then, I’m excellent at flyers. “That flyer was about the new and improved Redbud Festival, Georgie.”But the things that did not get resolved, that are still hanging over the series like the proverbial Sword of Damocles – or more like Chekhov’s Gun on the mantel waiting to be fired – are the questions about the true motivations and the depths of the corruption that Joywood has sunk to in their quest for power. That’s not all, though. Evil is lurking in the charming streets of St. Cyprian. Emerson will need to learn to control what’s inside of her, remember her magic, and deal with old, complicated feelings for her childhood friend ― cranky-yet-gorgeous local farmer Jacob North ― to defeat an enemy that hides in the rivers and shadows of everything she loves.
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