Nine years ago, in a moment of bad decision making fueled by a breakup and some vodka, Vivi and her cousin jokingly hexed Vivi's ex. It was just a joke, right? No way that Bath & Body Works candle actually had any magical oomph to it. Now he's back, though, and when a regular spell goes horribly wrong and the whole town is at risk. They're going to have to work together to break the hex, but try and avoid re-breaking their hearts in the process.

I found the premise of this book to be incredibly delightful. A little Hocus Pocus, a little Practical Magic, a little Halloweentown -- a perfect fall read. But the whole thing is so woefully underplotted that it doesn't hold up to any real scrutiny. Vivi's reluctance to practice magic is underexplored, Rhys' poor relationship with his father isn't developed out, the cat can suddenly talk and no one goes "huh, how did that happen?", and when confronted with the town's pending demise, the two... take their time figuring out how to break the hex? Get a good night's sleep and then a cup of tea the next day? There's absolutely no sense of urgency to solve what seems to me to be a rather urgent problem and the whole middle suffers for it.

With a few changes, this book would have worked really well; in particular, if Sterling had leaned into the hex breaking being a wacky romp, I think it would have been a really excellent, vaguely absurdist, cozy fall magic mystery. Scooby Doo vibes or something. I think my favorite part was the talking cat, who reminded me of Snaps from Strange Love by Ann Aguirre and correctly evaluated Rhys as a dickbag.

Also, I recognize that this is kind of a ridiculous thing to be frustrated by, but can we move on from Harry Potter references? It is not the only book about magic that has ever been written, and the author is a trash human being!! We know this!! Make another reference!!

Anyways, even though this was ultimately disappointing, it looks to be a series and obviously I am invested. I'll pick up the next one.

Thank you to Avon and NetGalley for the ARC!