Juggling newfound witchy powers, a house full of ghosts, and verbal battles with the handsome local librarian is almost too much for a new witch to manage. A new witch with a coven, however, can get so much more done…
From the moment Riley Everett set foot in Starfall Point, magic bubbled inside of her. But with only her late aunt’s journals and a cantankerous live-in ghost butler to instruct her on all things witchy—including her newly inherited Victorian haunted house—Riley seeks out a coven for sisterhood and support. The last person she expects to be drawn to is the town’s frustrating, yet ridiculously attractive head librarian.
Edison Held knows almost everything there is to know about Starfall Point, but Shaddow House was always off-limits, thanks to its elusive owner. If he can convince the new owner, Riley, to let him take a peek inside, there’s so much he could learn. But as he gets closer to Riley, he’s fascinated by her dazzling wit and fiery spirit. Edison will do whatever he can to help Riley keep her family legacy alive, especially if it means spending more time with the captivating new witch in town.
Review:
It is a truth universally acknowledged that I will forever say, “Yes, please!!!” to a new Molly Harper book. So reading the first book in a new Molly Harper series? A no-brainer.
Witches Get Stuff Done (love that title!) kicks off the author’s new Starfall Point series. Starfall Point–a small town on a small island in Michigan–is a place where ghosts and witches exist, but vampires and werewolves do not (seems like blasphemy in a Molly Harper book, but she’s with a new publisher so I guess it’s a necessary evil?) It’s a fish-out-of-water story with a touch of antagonists-to-lovers at the outset.
Our heroine, Riley Everett, is quite Jane Jameson-like in that she too is thrust into a world that she barely knew existed and is not at all prepared to navigate on her own. Unlike Jane, she’s not a librarian, former or otherwise–but her hero, Edison is. (And for the record, *this* librarian does not condone what they eventually do together in his office.) We share her frustration at the beginning, not quite knowing what is going on or what is expected of her.
To an extent, some of this frustration continues throughout the rest of the book for the reader, or at least it did for this reader. Time behaves somewhat oddly, with jumps here and there that aren’t always explained. We only see *some* of Riley’s learning to master her powers and uncover the secrets of the house she’s inherited, which is a bit of a letdown. Riley’s relationships with Edison, Caroline, and Alice seem to develop almost out of nowhere, which was also not quite satisfying. And don’t get me started on the villains of the piece…
I really do like the ghosts, though, and the idea of Shaddow House. I will absolutely be keeping an eye out for the next book, in the hopes that some of the sparkle of a typical Molly Harper book will be back in it. Maybe the author’s own move to Michigan distracted her from her writing this time around? Fingers crossed!
Rating: 4 stars / B
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.