Read with Fern

Spoilers Beyond This Point

“This little Kansas town, with its history as a haven for artisans and artists alike, had always been a haven for Flair as well.”

Playing the Witch Card, KJ Dell’Antonia

Getting to know the little magical town of Rattlesboro was a lot of fun. Flair certainly seems to hate it in the beginning, but any small town that treats Halloween like the most important day of the year is objectively cool. As the story progresses and it’s revealed that Flair and her family are not the only people with magic in town, it seems to get even cooler. I think I enjoyed the first third of this book the most, purely because of the spectacular world building and variety of magical offerings. Learning about Flair’s bakery, which was her grandmother’s tea shop, and all the magical possibilities was so exciting.

It’s revealed that Flair’s neighbor and childhood best friend, Josie has also had magical abilities since they were children, so she helps Flair and her daughter Lucie adjust to life in Rattlesboro. Determined to keep all magic hidden from Lucie, Flair tries to keep everything as normal as she can. Her internal monologue about not ruining Lucie’s life is just grating enough that I found myself siding with 13-year-old Lucie on just about everything.

“Flair leapt back with a scream. ‘He’s not dead.’ Cynthia stared at her. ‘No,’ she replied in the tone of someone who’d had a lot more time to get used to this than Flair had. Then she looked at Flair thoughtfully. ‘Did you want him to be?’”

Playing the Witch Card, KJ Dell’Antonia

Pretty quickly, we meet Flair’s unreliable mother Cynthia, and Flair’s equally unreliable soon-to-be-ex-husband David. Cyn has just (slightly) cursed David, and he has turned into a mind-controlled puppet, with Cyn holding the strings. Of course the hijinks that ensue are impeccable. They’re trying to keep Lucie out of the way so she doesn’t see the shell of her dad. Cyn and Flair are blaming each other. Flair and Lucie are fighting. It’s everything you want in a mother-daughter situation. It also reinforces how bad of a husband David has been, and how distant Cyn and Flair have become. The energy that this situation brings was pretty much what kept me interested for the rest of the book.

“‘I can’t just go ripping enchanted clematis out of your window boxes and pretending nothing is happening.’”

Playing the Witch Card, KJ Dell’Antonia

As the second third begins, Flair begins to suspect there’s more than two magic family lines in the small town. Honestly, this was also about the time I started feeling myself getting a little less invested. The entire middle section of the book is just reveal after reveal of more magical information, without any big changes to the plot.  Instead, Flair’s high school love interest is brought back into town, and their romance begins to rekindle. Which is nice, but with exactly 10% of the backstory going to their romantic past versus 90% going to the town’s magical inclinations, it was pretty hard to be invested.

It seemed like all the magical information was supposed to ramp up the story’s intensity, but instead of speeding up, it was start-stop-start-stop because of the poorly placed romance. I didn’t care about Jude, and spent more time trying to figure out if his candy brand, Jonka, was a play on “Jude” and “Wonka” than I did enjoying him as a romantic character.

“‘Some people are slow learners,’ Renee said. ‘Fine. I’ll tell you the truth. She plans to possess me, she’s afraid she can’t do it on her own, and she’s going to use your power to make sure I can’t stop her.’”

Playing the Witch Card, KJ Dell’Antonia

You’d think the possibility of witch possession would kick the pace back up. However, the final third was more about the Halloween festival than it was the witch matriarch that’s been controlling her descendants’ bodies for hundreds of years. And that’s truly a letdown, because I was ready for at least 70 pages of witch battle. Instead, Flair gets about 10 pages of information detailing exactly what could happen (bodily possession) and when it’ll happen (Halloween night), and she decides it won’t affect her and the spell she’s planning on doing at the same time, at the same place.

So then we get detail after detail about this Halloween festival that really could’ve been cut down. The big twist ending is that Flair’s daughter, Lucie, is the one who gets possessed. This twist repaired a lot of damage that had been done, but the ending still felt very rushed compared to the rest of the book. The ending also included a 60-year-old woman getting stabbed more than once in the chest and surviving without any issues, the ghost of a witch fighting the soul-possessing witch, and the boyfriend accepting that Flair had lied about her ex-husband, her heritage, her reason for being in town, what she was doing with his mom and sister, within 24 hours. 

Overall, I did enjoy this story as a fun, Halloween romp. It’s a quick read and will definitely get you in a fall mood. There’s a little too much world-building and some questionable plot choices, but it’s still worth a read!