Book Review: Bewitched

Years ago I read the Bargainer series by Laura Thalassa and really enjoyed it. I kept saying I’d read some of her other books like her Four Horsemen series but haven’t yet. However, since we’re now getting into Halloween season I thought it was the perfect time to read her Bewitched series starting with the first book of the same name.

The novel follows Selene Bowers and Memnon. Selene is a young woman and witch who has been desperately trying to gain admittance into Henbane Coven, an academy for witches, for a long time. After jumping through some hoops, she finally gets accepted. She’s excited to be living and learning amongst other witches, including her best friend, Sybil. All witches have different strengths and types of magic they are drawn to. Magic also tends to require some kind of payment. Selene’s magic is really rare because when she performs magic, she must pay in the form of memories. Yes, when she does magic, she loses a memory or memories from some time in her life.

When Selene was on her magical quest – a requirement for her to get into Henbane – she was drawn to a tomb in the jungle. When she opened it she awakened an ancient sorcerer, Memnon. Not only is he a powerful, ancient sorcerer, but he says he is Selene’s soulmate and husband and that she locked him in there thousands of years ago. The problem is she has no memory of ever doing so and for all intents and purposes has no reason to believe that she’s not a 20 year old girl. But, inexplicably, she can speak the same ancient language as Memnon and something about him saying they are mates sounds right.

When mysterious deaths start occurring on campus, Selene must find out what’s going on and if Memnon is involved or not. All this while hoping to not lose any important memories that she’ll need to survive.

I really enjoyed this book. It took a little while for me to get hooked into the story, but about a third of the way through I was. I thought Memnon was a really interesting character, but I wasn’t a fan of how the author showed all this growth in him – that he wasn’t all about getting revenge on Selene for supposedly locking him away and that he truly loved her and wanted to move on to suddenly wanting payback again. I guess one could argue that his desire for payback never went away and that he was playing with her, but it bothered me personally because I had started to really love him and then he was a jerk again. I’m hoping the 2nd book has me fully on his team again!

Read this if you want a spicy fantasy romance with the enemies to lovers and dark academia tropes.

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