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Blackheath is a young adult fantasy & magic novel by Gabriella Lepore. It is the first book in a new series. I found Blackheath to be an interesting and quick read. I think it will appeal to a younger, young adult audience as the writing and characters were a bit more superficial. Don't however; take that to be a bad thing. I enjoyed Blackheath and I think many readers will as well.

I find stories about witches to be really engaging reads, and if you throw a big kind of creepy old house in the mix, that automatically makes things even better, so I was excited. What excited me more was the fact that all of the witches in the Tomlins family were men. I think there are a very severe shortage of young adult witch stories feature male witches.

Maggie and Joel both started out a little whinny for my tastes, but both of them grew on me. There is certainly not insta love in this story, because Maggie and Joel seem to hate each other. but once they started talking the gap from bickering to crush was jumped rather quickly. It is one of the reasons that I think this story will appeal more to a younger crowd rather than an older one. The story is a quick read that moves at a very brisk pace. It kept me engaged to the very end, and I cannot wait to see what the author is going to do next with it. I want to know more about the golden light around Maggie, so I hope that comes up again.

In the next book, I want to see more of the back story of Maggie and Joel. It was briefly mentioned that they used to hang out during the summers, but we didn't really get to dive into why that stopped. I would like to see that explored a bit more. And there are lots more magic to come as well. I am very interested to see the interaction between the two covens, and I think Joel has some more secrets up his sleeve.

Bottom line: I thought this was a cute, quick read that kept me interested. I think it will appeal more to a younger audience looking for a magical witch read. The romance was cute and you can finish this one in just a couple of hours. I will be continuing this story for sure when I am looking for my next quick fix.

This review was originally posted on Book Briefs