Attention! This book contains: werewolves, witchcraft, spells, hometowns, demon horses and mooncakes.

A story of love and demons, family and witchcraft.

Nova Huang knows more about magic than your average teen witch. She works at her grandmothers’ bookshop, where she helps them loan out spell books and investigate any supernatural occurrences in their New England town.

One fateful night, she follows reports of a white wolf into the woods, and she comes across the unexpected: her childhood crush, Tam Lang, battling a horse demon in the woods. As a werewolf, Tam has been wandering from place to place for years, unable to call any town home.

Pursued by dark forces eager to claim the magic of wolves and out of options, Tam turns to Nova for help. Their latent feelings are rekindled against the backdrop of witchcraft, untested magic, occult rituals, and family ties both new and old in this enchanting tale of self-discovery.

This book was recommended by a friend on Instagram – thank you Maria! -, and even though I was excited to read this, it didn’t work for me.

To be completely fair, I think this had great potential. The artwork was beautiful and I liked the magic and witchcraft theme of the book, but what really went wrong for me was the plot. The story was mostly focused on their romance, so the plot felt secondary and unnecessary. It was very weak and rushed, and the timing of the images felt weird. The thing is: if you’re making a strongly themed book with a defined plot, the focus should be on that. It feels weird to make a story so specific… and then not develop it.

I also had a hard time connecting to the characters, because they were extremely bland and boring – I liked Nova’s Nanas way more! The insta-love romance was weak and lacked chemistry, so I didn’t care for it either. There was a lot of pre-established information that took the interest out of the story.

The only thing I really liked about this book was the art, but… why on Earth is the art different in the last chapters?? It looks like the work was left unfinished…

I’m disappointed. Like I said, I think the story had potential, but a lot of things felt off. I was hoping this would be at least entertaining, but it was a miss for me.