Quick Synopsis – When her mother suddenly passes away Mattie returns home to Ivy Ridge, Georgia. While she’s there, she is swept up into the magic of her family and the scavenger hunt her mother left behind.

Song This Reminds Me Of – Carried Me With You by Brandi Carlile

Publication Date –Jan. 16, 2024

Spicy Rating – 🌶

Overall Rating – 2.5 ⭐ out of 5

Review – Content warning – there is mention of child loss in this story.

This is a cozy, closed-door romance that spans generations of magical women in a small town in Georgia. You could easily draw connections between this novel and Practical Magic or Gilmore Girls. However, I thought this book was a little messy, and honestly, I had a hard time connecting with the characters. I thought Mattie has real “I’m-Not-Like-Other-Girls” energy, and Jonathan continuously puts down other women in praise of Mattie. He constantly refers to how Chicago women know they’re beautiful and Mattie is just effortlessly pretty. To me, the family story was much more interesting, and I thought that could have been way more fleshed out.

Lilith, Mattie’s mother, is like a manic panic pixie dream girl with magic powers. We don’t really see any of this character on the page, even in flashbacks. I thought this was a real disservice to the story because we don’t really see Lilith at all; we only get impressions of her through other people. And that impression sucks. She dragged her child all over the US and made it so Mattie has terrible emotional health and has no permanent connections with people. It makes Lilith seem like a fun mom, but a bad mom. Penelope, Lilith’s sister, was way more developed as a character and had a heartbreaking backstory. Honestly, the book could have focused solely on Penelope, and I would have liked it a lot more.

Lastly, the magic. I actually really like that the author didn’t build up the magic system or work to give some sort of explanation. Just that women in the Russell family were a little different and interacted with the world in magical ways. It was more like they had special ways to influence things, like Penelope with her sewing. Though I feel like we never really got a background on any other Russell women, which kind of bothered me. This is meant to be a generational story, which we get between Penelope and Mattie, but I felt like so much more could have been included.

Overall, this book wasn’t for me. However, I think if you’re looking for a quick cozy read with some closed-door romance, this could be for you.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Muse.