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cozysabie 's review for:
Best Hex Ever
by Nadia El-Fassi
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
"There was something different about Serendipity Cafe, a certain spark in the air that no one could quite put their finger on. It was a place where good things happened."
GENRE: Cozy Paranormal Romance
RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
FORMAT: eBook eArc
Would I recommend to others?: YES, YES and YES! This book was so good, you literally go on an adventure with Dina and Scott and like honestly, every single page was better than the last one so I'd recommend this to everyone. It can pass as Cozy Romantasy but definitely look at the list of sensitive topics before heading into it
Long Review:
Best Hex Ever is a lovely book that explores multiple topics: grief, heartbreak, losing oneself due to external factors and self-confidence or believing in yourself. We go on a whole journey with Dina and Scott, we see their downs and their ups, the good and the bad. And the result of it? A beautiful relationship that is built based on reality while still being wholesome and cozy. There is a softness to the magic in Best Hex Ever:
"When she'd been fashioning the spell for the first time, it had occurred to Dina that one day your parents put you down and they never picked you up again, and so she'd made the honey cake to recreate that feeling of childhood comfort."
Dina is a Chef/Baker who owns her own cafe in London and she is half Moroccan (there is a lot of Darija mentions related to food in the book like Zaalouk and Louiza and ahhh my half moroccan heart filled with love reading these things). Dina is proud to be a witch and infuses her pastries with harmless magic that makes her customer's life a little bit better without it being so noticeable.
Dina, however, has a problem. She believes she is cursed and is doomed to be single forever as anyone she loves is guaranteed to have bad luck the minute she loves them. Using this curse, El-Fassi explores self-confidence, loving oneself and how certain experience break us more than we can ever know. Dina talks about wanting to find a love like her parents, the softness of it and finding someone who gets you inside out:
"Dina wanted a love like her parents had: unflappable, unscathed by time."
ANDD the second MC? That is Scott, who is recovering from a break-up that shred his heart and caused him to leave London. He is now back and about to attend a wedding as his best friend's best man and guess who is the maid of honour? Dina! Scott is the type of MC that is so wholesome, feels everything to a whole other degree and wants only the best for everyone around him.
Not only that, he is also a museum curator and believes that every item belongs to where it originated from. He believes every little item he curates is important and has a little magic in it and when he meets Dina? That belief in him gets confirmed:
"He'd always wanted to believe in magic, to believe that the world was bigger than what he saw around him. He'd tried so hard to believe. In a way, he'd dedicated his work to it. But Scott didn't have to try anymore. Dina was the manifestation of everything he'd so desperately wanted to believe in."
Sparks start to fly as they get together and can no longer deny the chemistry between them. Dina tries hard to deny it as she wants to protect Scott from the curse that she believes is following her. Scott is recovering from a breakup and can't believe that he has found someone like Dina (okay, this is like the best kind of MC, one who knows they are lucky to have their loved one):
He'd forgotten how it felt, being with someone like this - the giddy feeling in his chest. He couldn't help but imagine what it would be like to spend more mornings with Dina, waking up in their bed, eating breakfast together in a sunny kitchen before he pulled her onto his lap. Imagining a future was a dangerous thing, but for a short time, Scott let himself revel in the idea of it."
"He couldn't even begin to compare Alice and Dina. With Dina everything felt so ... easy. Liking her was easy, and he suspected that loving her would be even easier. It would feel as natural as breathing. Perhaps it already did."
"Home; he felt at home with Dina. Had he ever felt like this with Alice? Scott racked his brains but couldn't summon any memory with such clarity."
On the other hand, Dina was having strong feelings for Scott and loved him but the curse was haunting her. The loveliest thing about the Best Hex Ever is that we have a mother-daughter duo in here and we get to see the beauty in their relationship, get to see them come together and love each other more and more:
"Dina watched her mother's face, a mirror image of what Dina would look like in thirty years. Laugh lines crinkled around her brown eyes, age spots beginning to dot the top of her cheeks. Nour had the ability to remove these of course, if she wished. But Dina's mother had always been one to age gracefully. She'd even kept the white hairs that now blossomed at her temples, saying they made her look distinguished and elegant."
Despite their strong relationship, Dina hides the curse from her mother and internalises the fact that she is not good enough for anyone. She hides the fact that she struggles with self confidence and fully accepting herself. Because of this, she cannot fully confide in her mother and ends up almost losing Scott because of it (not really, but that is what Dina believes):
"She stared at him blearily through her tears. What if she'd lost him, this man who she'd come to care about so deeply? This man who made her happier than anyone ever had, who knew every inch of her body and loved it so well."
Best Hex ever ends in a lovely, satisfying HEA as a romance book but it takes you on a whole adventure. You will have to read it to discover who cursed Dina, how she deals with her internal struggle and how Scott finds his soul mate.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an eArc in exchange for my honest opinion.