In my opinion, there's no one who can do better paranormal comedy than Molly Harper. Her characters are always quirky, the hilarious situations are really fun to read, and the sarcasm is on par with some of the best rom-com out there. However, I think what makes this book work is, despite all the good bits, the paranormal story is still there to hold the book together.
Nola Leary is new to Half-Moon Hollow, the setting of many Molly Harper novels. She's only there as temporary resident, on a "quest" to find four magical artifacts that will save her family's magic. Ever since her grandmother passed away a little while back, she has felt responsible for her family and her family's well being. In theory, the search shouldn't be too hard because the artifacts should all be in her long lost grandfather's book shop. However, since he has passed away too and his organization skills were never great (awful, actually) things turn out to be a little harder than she expected. When she meets the new bookstore owner Jane Jameson, she welcomes any help she can get, so reveals her quest to her new vampire friend. Nola is the type of character that I love to read about. She makes almost every situation hilarious and if she would be an actual person in real life, it would be awesome to have her as a friend. It might be exhausting at time, but her sincerity and liveliness would definitely be worth it.
Obviously, this book wouldn't be complete without a hot and likeable guy. Jed Trudeau just happens to be Nola's next door neighbour and despite his extreme hotness, he's actually a very nice guy. His and Nola's humour are on the same page so their banter is definitely interesting and witty. Nola doesn't reveal her quest to Jed when she first meets him and she isn't very truthful about where she's from either. Jed has his own secrets too and there's an air of mystery that follows him around most of the book. Jed and Nola make a great pair and even if she feels guilty for cheating on her boyfriend with Jed, deep down I think she truly feels like her relationship with Stephen has never been very authentic in the first place.
As always, the Half-Moon Hollow residents make great secondary characters. Their eccentricities are what you expect to see in small town characters but Molly Harper is able to add her own little flair to them. What's great about this novel is you don't need to read any of her other books to understand this one. This is theoretically the second full length book of the series, which is actually a spin off to another one, and many of the characters from the previous novels are featured in this one. If you've read the other books, it's actually nice to meet the characters again to see how their happily ever after is working out for them, but it's really not necessary to know their back story in order to under Nola and Jed's.
I always highly anticipate Molly Harper's novels but for some reason, I've been a really bad fan and I haven't been keeping up. What thrills me is that a new book from her werewolf series is due out soon so I'm really looking forward to that since it's always been my favourite series of hers. If paranormal comedy is for you, I really recommend Harper's since it will make you laugh out loud and entertain you to the very end. It's as if this sub-genre was created for her since her wittiness was made to go with this type of paranormal romance. That being said, A Witch's Handbook of Kisses and Curses is a definite success and I highly recommend it.
**Notice** Due to transfering back from a godaddy hosted wordpress blog back to blogger, reviews published before june 2017 don`t all have a pretty layout with book cover and infos. Our apologies.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
A Witch's Handbook of Kisses and Curses by Molly Harper
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Great review, I look forward to reading this one. I've only read two books by Harper, but I really liked them. She definitely knows how to write fun PNRs!
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TBQ
Lovely review, I really want to read her books soon!
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