Review: With This Witch

When a friend told me With This Witch was a steamy, magical romance, I was all in and immediately signed myself up to receive an ARC of Isla Winter’s debut novel. It definitely hit the steamy mark but the rest of it didn’t quite thrill me as I wanted it to.

Here’s the book’s description:

A marriage of convenience proves to be magically inconvenient, and no spell will get them out of it or calm their burning desires.
Being a legacy witch comes with expectations, and, unfortunately, when Gammy shares that she’s sick, Petra becomes the front-runner for the role of Premier Witch, a part she’s never really wanted. The inconvenient catch? Traditionally, the Premier Witch must be married, and a combative supernatural council member is only too happy to point out. Petra must now find a husband to prove she is serious about accepting the role. Oh, and she must do it in the next thirty days! If she fails, she loses everything.
Enter bar owner and current delicious demon representative on the council, Lachlan Grace. A close friend of Petra’s, Lachlan, has been drawn to her from the moment she walked into his bar. Battling his own demons from his past and tired of being just friends, Lachlan offers himself as an option for a marriage candidate. Will he be able to move out of the friend zone while also keeping his history in the past?
Now, thrust into supernatural politics with a looming deadline, Petra finds herself questioning what she wants in life, struggling with how to make her Gammy proud and keep in check the pesky feelings bubbling under the surface for a smoking hot demon at the same time. What’s a witch to do?

OK - you have to know that I, like most sane people, don’t love writing less-than-positive book reviews. Especially when they’re novels by debut authors and/or that were self-published. But I don't think it's fair of me to only shout about the great books and ignore the ones that I didn’t love.

I love me some witchy books because I’m always curious about how authors put their own spin on magical worlds, even if said world is like our human one and magical folk are living in it. For the most part, I was totally into the world Winter created. I loved that there were different types of creatures all living in town with the humans, who, for the most part, knew there were magical creatures hanging out around them. I wasn’t totally sure if there were more towns like Leeside or if it was the only one. I also didn’t grasp all of the magical rules - how come Petra could clean up her apartment but had to call Lachlan, a male, to change her car’s tire? - but I liked that there was a focus on spells, potions, and herbs for the witches.

I think a big problem for me was I just didn’t understand anyone’s motivations. I never entirely understood why Petra never embraced her magic, knowing she was going to have to take over from her grandmother eventually. I didn’t quite get why Lachlan didn’t want to go back to the underworld or why he’d have to/felt like he should? That was part magical world confusion and part character confusion. The motivations of some important secondary characters were real head scratchers, which was tricky when they impacted the story SO much (yes, it’s vague but if I mention character names, it’ll be spoiled for you and that would be sad!).

I also just could not grasp the timeline in this book. There were times it seemed like, based on the characters’ feelings on how things were going, that time was ticking merrily along but, in fact, it had been, like 24 hours. And other times when we zoomed along to two weeks later? Somehow? It made my head spin.

I suppose I should also mention the romance in this romance novel, eh? I liked Petra and Lachlan together, even when they were refusing to admit they actually had real feelings for each other. I love fake dating tropes and find fake marriages a bit harder to swallow but the fact that they were friends for a few years prior to having to get hitched? That helped and there was clearly chemistry there. And did you catch me mentioning that this was a steamy book? Whew, baby. I found the sex scenes to be really well done.

Overall, With This Witch was a good read. I’m hopeful Isla Winter can grow stronger as a writer with her second Leeside Witches book as I think she has an interesting and fun idea for her series.

*An egalley was provided by the author in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*