#Payback's A Witch

[thereadingchallengechallenge]

JOMP BPC - October 18th - Witches

can't wait to try The Witches of Thistle Grove series the next time I'm in a paranormal mood 💜

[wizardsvslesbians]

This is the first of three books we’re covering which are very political (on purpose or not) and very funny (on purpose or not.)  Our consensus on this one is that it doesn’t mean to be political and does mean to be funny, but all the best jokes in it are completely unintentional.  Maybe we’re wrong!

Anyway this made Alexis entirely re-evaluate chick lit as a genre, so check it out.

[blossyossyossy]

I don’t even fucking know how bookstagram even got into my feed but how come when it comes to bi books they never mention “Payback’s a Witch”?

Emmy’s bi. Talia’s bi [with a fem pref].

Like... Bi4Bi witches???

[desdasiwrites]

It looked like a storybook house belonging to your favorite no-nonsense witch-which, come to think of it, sounded like both my parents.

– Lana Harper, Payback's a Witch

[disregardcanon]

You don't fall (in love) hard and fast like I do. You take your time about it. And then if someone beats you to catching feelings it freaks you the hell out. Makes you feel guilty, and resentful that you're suddenly stuck managing all their emotions, all that inconvenient mess

Payback’s a Witch by Lana Harper

[mistwraiths]

4 stars

Payback's a Witch surprised me. I thought going into it that it was going to be a fairly lighthearted, getting revenge on a boy, sapphic book but I was wrong. It IS about getting revenge of sorts, but nothing so mean or intricate as ruining his life or anything. And it is two bisexual girls falling in love with each other. But it gave me more than that. It gave me a beautiful town, a good protagonist and her own issues, ambitions, and expectations, a deep friendship between two life long friends, a GET 'EM plot, and a magic tournament between scions.

I thought it was kind of interesting to only vaguely go into what exactly Gareth really did to the girls. We get enough to know that he had connections both emotional and intimate with them, two at the same time, and kind of tossed them all off to the side when he was done or found out. The author could have made Gareth much more of a douche but other than being a bit of a two-timer and a pretentious asshole, he wasn't a complete garbage person. Of course we don't go in to detail but any interaction we see from him is mild or frustrated or drunk, but he never went into huge POS behavior on page. And I liked that. I liked that also their revenge is teaming up to stop him from getting what would have gone to him easily. And that's all it was.

Emmy was a really enjoyable character for me. I really liked how she chafed against how her founding family wasn't treated similarly like the others and they were relatively weak compared to the magic of the other Founder families. I liked her ambition of wanting to BE someone especially with the expectation Thistle Grove has on Harlow and her being a Scion. It has to be really hard to live with knowing you'll never be what those other witches will be because your magic is so weak. Her trying to find that place where she belongs and struggling with the fact that Thistle Grove is home and Gareth's breakup comments that 100% hit her right at her wounds would be hard. Her beef with her cousin I didn't particularly enjoy but I loved how Emmy came to realize how she was acting and they seemed to have patched things up to be better in the future.

Lin and Talia were really good characters as well. I loved Emmy's and Lin's friendship and I liked that they had that conversation that really put everything out there. Emmy trying to leave Thistle Grove behind DID hurt other people and not just Lin too. The whole conversation with her mother made me tear up. Talia was fun and interesting, definitely giving us dark sexy sorceress vibe, but I do like that she had multitudes of being soft and liked things that wasn't in her aesthetic. I also really liked how while Talia was valid in her anger, she was also not being very willing to compromise or sympathize and Emmy had valid points and feelings, and she apologized at the end and said she'd like to visit Chicago. The fact that Emmy just didn't drop everything outside of Thistle Grove, that her job and her love of Chicago was still important was a nice thing to keep.

The tournament was honestly okay, a little lackluster because they were over so quickly for the most part. The ending was really great though and the reveal!!!! It was shitty of Elias to keep it hidden and honestly I think every witch in Thistle Grove needs to appreciate the Harlows.

This book was also written just very beautifully. A little purple prose, full of similes and metaphors, and the town itself is the perfect autumn witchy vibes. I do think the author liked to pick big words from the dictionary when simpler ones would have sufficed, but overall it was enjoyable.

It wasn't a five star for me though because it did take its time but it didn't drag its feet. Just a really nice read with a bit of spice!

[plantdad-dante]

Book #81 - Payback’s A Witch by Lana Harper

(first time read, + the only book in this series I will read) The saddest thing is, I really thought I would like it. The premise had sounded so fun - three witches take revenge on the asshole who hurt them... It could have been so badass. They could have actually outsmarted him, bested him through the unexpected power of team work, forged friendship and love on the way, and then truly lingered on the moment in the climax when everything would have come crashing down on him and he realized in humiliation that payback truly is a witch. But, alas... that's not what I got. Instead what I got was a Hallmark christmas movie set in Halloween Town starring an inferiority complex the size of Chicago, an abysmally paced tournament plot, all-over-the-place lore and a romance that was ninety percent horny, ten percent regular boring. The book treats Emmy's move to Chicago as the worst thing she ever did, when her mistake was at best that she refused to come back to visit. And it's not like her family or her friends can't leave their town to visit in turn. Or that phones and the internet don't exist. The fact that the town (I will not bother to look up the name again) is such a magnet to all of them that they refuse to leave it even for a day or two borders on dystopian. I was practically begging Emmy to realize that such a dependency on the place you live in is truly nightmarish and that she should save herself while she still could. But no, that's not what Emmy is like. Emmy, instead, is super annoying. "wha, my family is weak and totally fine with that, wha, I built a life for myself that apparently pays me a decent living wage and can comfortably give me a whole month off, wha, I had every fucking chance to get over myself and make peace with my childhood and family situation, wha, I want everything the other families have and more, I wanna be extra special with a cherry on top, wha" I swear to fucking god. And then in the end she basically gets shackled to her hometown forever anyway?? GIRL, GET OUT OF THERE! RUN!! Btw, PSA for all writers out there: Do not, I repeat, do not drop your sequel hook about a third of the way into your first book and then just leave it there, never to be discussed again. (If it wasn't for the sneak peak for the sequel at the end of my copy, I wouldn't even know it was a sequel hook. I would've just called it a forgotten plot curve ball left in here thanks to the utterly bizzarre editing.) I haven't even mentioned yet how the twins are both so inconsequential that they could have easily just been one character; or how Talia is described as wolfish so consistently that I was half-convinced she would turn out to be a werewolf, but this post is already getting long enough. I'm done whingeing now.

[cattatonically]

Payback’s a Witch - Lana Harper

My Thoughts

I absolutely adored this book! I loved the magical theory, the relationships, and especially the underlying revenge plot. Overall, this book just checked off pretty much all of my boxes.

At the outset, I was 100% on board with Emmy and her trepidation about returning home. Been there, done that, did not buy the T-Shirt. (Granted, she was welcomed with open arms, while I absolutely would meet the opposite.) But it’s clear early on just how much she truly missed, and maybe needed, to be home.

As the overall revenge plot unfolds, I just grew more and more delighted. There is nothing I love more than watching a grown-ass, affluential, privileged man meet the consequences to his actions. And Emmy definitely deserves to give her ex that in a BIG way. (Nope, cannot relate at all, I don’t know what you’re talking about.)

Overall, it was hard to watch Emmy struggle to determine what she wants, and how she wants to attain it. Again, been there, done, that, contemplating buying the T-Shirt. That part hits a bit close to home for me, but it’s also a part of adulthood that must be faced – as much as we don’t want to do it.

As Emmy mends her existing relationships – and builds new ones – it really was wonderful to watch her come into her own, and go after what she wants, in a way that is compromising and makes sense.

I understand that the stories of the Thistle Grove witches continue into a series, but this book really can read as a stand-alone. I’m uncertain if I’ll continue or not. As much as I loved this story, I really feel like it met a natural, and complete, end. But who knows, maybe I’ll miss this world so much, I’ll have no choice but to revisit!

[sapphicstaffy]

Spooky reading season

[quoteablebooks]

Genre: Fiction, Adult, Romance, Fantasy

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Content Warning: Sexual content, Alcohol, Cursing, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Violence, Misogyny     

Summary:

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina meets The L Word in this fresh, sizzling rom-com by Lana Harper.

Emmy Harlow is a witch but not a very powerful one—in part because she hasn't been home to the magical town of Thistle Grove in years. Her self-imposed exile has a lot to do with a complicated family history and a desire to forge her own way in the world, and only the very tiniest bit to do with Gareth Blackmoore, heir to the most powerful magical family in town and casual breaker of hearts and destroyer of dreams.

But when a spellcasting tournament that her family serves as arbiters for approaches, it turns out the pull of tradition (or the truly impressive parental guilt trip that comes with it) is strong enough to bring Emmy back. She's determined to do her familial duty; spend some quality time with her best friend, Linden Thorn; and get back to her real life in Chicago.

On her first night home, Emmy runs into Talia Avramov—an all-around badass adept in the darker magical arts—who is fresh off a bad breakup . . . with Gareth Blackmoore. Talia had let herself be charmed, only to discover that Gareth was also seeing Linden—unbeknownst to either of them. And now she and Linden want revenge. Only one question stands: Is Emmy in?

But most concerning of all: Why can't she stop thinking about the terrifyingly competent, devastatingly gorgeous, wickedly charming Talia Avramov?

*Opinions*

Truth be told, I don’t remember how this book appeared on my radar, but it sounded like an interesting premise. While I am a novice romance reader, I am a huge fan of witch books and seeing how the author works magic in a contemporary setting. Also, a woman scorned getting her revenge is also something I am a huge fan of so the elements of this book should have worked for me. I did enjoy my time in Thistle Grove and with Emmy, but due to personal preferences, this book wasn’t a home run for me. 

Payback’s a Witch follows Emmy Harlow’s return to her hometown of Thistle Grove, a city of real witches that attracts tourists during Halloween with a gimmicky witch atmosphere. Emmy left almost nine years ago after a breakup that broke her spirit and her love for the town she called home. Now, she has to return for the Gauntlet, a magical competition that will decide which of the original witch families has governing powers in the town, due to her family scion always serving as the arbiter. However, when she returns to Thistle Grove, she finds out that her ex has also scorned two other witches, the scion of House Avramov and her best friend, and they pull Emmy into a pact to make sure that her ex doesn’t win the Gauntlet. The longer Emmy stays in Thistle Grove and the more time she spends with the people there, she starts to wonder if she has made a new life outside of the town or just run away from her old one. It doesn’t help that she has an electric pull to Talia that doesn’t feel as if it is onsided. What was supposed to just be a month-long visit to say goodbye to Thistle Grove for good is getting more and more complicated. 

As the plot took a back seat to the romance, obviously, I did enjoy the world-building that Harper put into this book. Thistle Grove felt like a real place that I would love to visit during the Fall. Harper also makes the magic a living thing in the town, which in turn makes the town a character in its own right. The history of the town and the founders that are established in this novel was also interesting, if a bit fluffy. In the acknowledgments, Harper stated that while she had been thinking about Thistle Grove for a while, this was a COVID novel, and you could feel that. Everything was just a little too shiny and all the emotional moments were there, but didn’t dig deep into the angst. While I know a lot of people like a nice fluffy novel, I like a little more angst in my stories in general, but especially my romances. 

I felt the same way with all the characters in the novel, they were all a little too shiny, even the horrible ex. Sure, Gareth really screwed over all three of the witches, but he was portrayed as more of an idiot than a truly horrible individual. Linden is the perfect best friend, Talia is the perfect mysterious romantic interest, and her parents are perfectly understanding parents. Emmy is really the character that is shown with the most negative attributes, of being selfish and running from her emotions, but who doesn’t do that in their twenties? Again, there is nothing wrong with any of this, but it just isn’t to my taste.  

The romance, which is the main focus of this novel, was well-written but didn’t really catch my attention. I liked Emmy and Talia together and I think their banter was well written. However, I felt a lot of their chemistry was told to us through electric touches than shown on the page. I believe that there was a good deal of lust between them, and the romance scenes were well written, but I didn’t think that the declarations at the end were earned. Again, Harper didn’t dig deep into either the positive or negative emotions. I am wondering if they pop up in the other novels in this companion series and if I will feel more about their relationship as it grows. 

My biggest gripe about this novel is the amount of pop-culture references in this novel. While I know that this isn’t out of the ordinary with contemporary novels or romances, the amount in this book was noticeable and slightly obnoxious. There was one page in which there were easily five pop culture references and while this was published recently enough that they weren’t outdated, no one thinks in that many references back to back to back. It kept pulling me out of the story and the biggest issue I had with Harper’s writing. 

Overall, this was an easy and fun novel, but I didn’t connect with it. Overall, I think I am going to continue in the series, but I don’t know if I am going to buy the novels or just get them from the library. This is a 3.5 read rounded up to a 4. 

[judeinthestars]

New review! Payback's a Witch by Lana Harper, narrated by Jeremy Carlisle Parker.

[neverthetwinsshallmeet]

To usher in spooky season, we have an episode on witchy books! Tune in to listen to us discuss The Scapegracers boy H.A. Clarke and Payback’s a Witch by Lana Harper. We discuss the different takes on witches in both novels, their representation of magic-wielding lesbian and bisexual women, and how supernatural elements are used to underscore and develop the character relationships. (And also how a drag show act served as the seed of inspiration for this episode.)Content warnings: car crash, parental death, homophobia

[leostarred]

hexxing / cursing / jinxing / banishing ingredients.

(anything can be used with the right intent, these are just my favorites, and what i use them with the intent of .) ☆

dead crickets (crickets are often loud in life and disturb sleep, dead crickets to send auditory hallucinations.)

gone bad lavender (bad dreams, nightmares, issues falling/staying asleep.)

dragons blood incense/smoke (chaos, destruction, sometimes physical illness.)

cigarette butts (i like to imagine the smoke getting stuck in their lungs, physical illness.)

dead wasps/wasp nest (getting someone where it hurts, unexpected loss and or pain.)

rotten chili pepper (regular chili pepper works too, but i find that rotten gives the victim an extra "kick" )

vinegar/a sour wine (sending their sour/bitter energy back at them.)

mistletoe (loneliness, BUTTTT can be used for one hell of a forced love spell on someone you hate- make someone they hate OBSESSED with them.)

broken glass (breaking them down, causing pain.)

animal bones (extreme illness, physical harm.)

cemetery dirt (bonus points if its from a graveyard an ancestor is buried in.. ancestors can be SO helpful.)

blood (obviously be careful, blood magick is definitely not beginner friendly, but this can send the jinx/curse/hex, whatever after their bloodline.)

razor blades (pain, difficulty.)

broken egg shells (break them down yourself, put all your aggression into it, imagine you're destroying their trust, i use this for paranoia.)

a picture of your victim, a piece of paper with their name/birthday (bonus points for hometown.)

thorns (trouble in romance, arguing.)

tiger lily (sickness, confusion, lethargy.)

*gentle reminder,

a JINX is an inconvenience.

a HEX is bad luck/illnesss.

a CURSE is direct harm.

blessed be! ★

[futuristicson]

[discocandles]

so do y'all remember the post(maybe its a tweet idk) that's like "a hot goth who lives in the woods and when they answer the door, they sigh and say "no, i'm not the witch, he lives over there." and points to a dazzling pretty boy in a golden waistcoat waving excitedly at them. this happens 253 times a month."?

what if I said platonic stobin in a fantasy au?

Like when they go shopping in the market, some of the vendors are like "there's the local witch who lives in the woods, a very helpful soul." and passerby always assume it's the woman wrapped up in a dark shawl and flowing dress. but no, it's the himbo with the gorgeous hair dressed in a sparkly tunic.

and another part of the post was like "a fair maiden knocks on the goth lady's door and says she's here to find love. the goth sighs and points across the road like 'the witch is over there, but he doesn't do love potions. he could give you one for beauty, but it typically just makes you more confident.' to which the maiden sheepishly explains that she talked to the witch, and he sent her over here. to which the goth lady looks across the street and the witch is grinning and gives her a thumbs-up."

like do you see what I'm putting down here? like rovickie? Ronance? Buckingham mayhaps? Steve would definitely do this!

Or if they were to just move in together to solve the issue going to the wrong house issue? perfect, Steve and Robin are basically roommates anyway, you just add in some witchy shenanigans. Like them chatting/bickering while Steve is brewing potions? fantastic, unless it gets more rowdy and Steve adds a bit too much of one ingredient and almost explodes. or gardening together? immaculate.

anyway, fantasy au Steve and Robin owns my brain now

[bigdreamsandwildthings]

To say I’m obsessed with this shirt is an understatement 🙈