Rating: 3 out of 5.

This was a fun contemporary fantasy romance about witches in a small Illinois town vying to win a spellcasting tournament among the town’s founder families.

Emmy Harlow is a witch with very little powers who left her small witchy town of Thistle Grove, Illinois to make her way in Chicago. Although she’s been gone for 9 years, she relents to her parent’s wishes and returns to town to fulfill her family’s duty to be the arbiter of the spellcasting tournament. Once in town, she’s confronted with Gareth, the boy that broke her heart and caused her to leave town, but also meets Talia, a powerful bad-ass witch who is fresh off a break-up with Gareth as well.

Three founder families vie for the spellcaster crown. Emmy’s best friend Linden belongs to one family, Talia belongs to the second family, and Gareth belongs to the third family. Talia and Linden’s family decide to band together to defeat Gareth. Emmy must remain neutral in the tournament, despite the growing attraction between her and Talia.

This was a fun book about Emmy’s journey to make peace with herself and her hometown. The author does a pretty good job of depicting Emmy’s struggle, especially when she has to confront harsh truths about her role in deciding to run away from her problems. The supporting characters weren’t fleshed out too much and were there mainly to react to Emmy. The story was pretty typical scorned girls get revenge on mean boy, but it was fun to see how the author got there.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group. All opinions are my own.