Clare L. Deming

I picked up Perfectly Wicked by Lindsay Lovise on a whim when I saw it on sale. This is a romance with magic-wielding characters who are not quite witches (paid link).

Here is the blurb:

Holly Celeste and her sisters make the best apple cider in Maine—courtesy of a magical secret ingredient—but even that hasn’t been enough to keep their orchard afloat. To save the family business, Holly accepts a proposal to let a ghost hunting series film an episode on her farm. Connor Grimm may be the sexy and down-to-earth TV host the nation loves, but to Holly he represents her greatest fear: exposure. Holly doesn’t mind if Connor chases down a silly ghost story—it’s their other secret she’s terrified he’ll reveal.

Connor Grimm’s life goal is to normalize the paranormal, which he does on his show, Grimm Reality. Except he isn’t only looking for a ghost at Wicked Good Apples. There have been rumors of rain during droughts and other inexplicable happenings that could only be attributed to something supernatural, and Connor plans to expose it on an episode that will take his show’s success to another level.

Intent on keeping Connor in the dark, Holly joins him as he interviews eyewitnesses, hunts for old records, and unearths a story even she didn’t know existed. Despite her resolution to dislike him, she begins to fall for the only man who’s ever made her feel like strange could be normal. Too bad a relationship with Connor could only be temporary; he moves to a new state every month, and there’s no room in his life for a woman with a pet hedgehog, a houseful of nosy aunts and sisters, and a failing apple orchard.

When Connor finally pieces together Holly’s greatest secret, he’s forced to choose between revealing his biggest paranormal discovery yet and propelling his show to the top of the charts, and giving it all up for the wicked woman who’s charmed his heart.

After some dark, dense, and long fantasy books, I needed to find something like this light romance novel from Lindsay Lovise. I read this last month while I was sick with the flu, so I finished this book in just a few days. It was easy to read and at about 300 pages, made for a quick break from more complicated novels.

This book follows a traditional formula for a romance novel. We see the main male and female character’s viewpoint chapters as they both deny what they feel for each other and try to resist their mutual attraction. Circumstances keep throwing them together until they realize they can no longer resist each other. There is a good amount of spicy description in this book, and a particularly hot hayloft painting scene.

I liked how the plot skipped over details of Connor’s show and only showed brief glimpses of his filming process. The focus of the story was on the character interactions and the mystery of the apple farm’s magic and history. While this was a romance, I found enough other aspects of the plot to keep me interested in how the characters figured out those secrets.

I had assumed that Holly and her sisters were witches, but they never thought of themselves this way, and they struggled to understand their own magic. This turned out to be an important mystery in the book, but initially I had thought it was a weakness in the characterization.

Overall this was a light and fun book. I’d consider reading another novel by this author. Have you read any other books by Lindsay Lovise? Let me know in the comments.

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