Witch, Please by Ann Aguirre
Fix-It Witches #1
PNR
September 7, 2021, by Sourcebooks
ARC

Reviewed by Melinda

I love the concept of this book so much. Contemporary paranormal small town romantic comedy with a magical electronical repair woman and and a bisexual baker. All of that just screams please read me! But the actual execution in the book was a little lacking in areas for me.

Things I loved about the book:

Danica’s magical ability. Danica is a technomancer, which I love. She’s able to fix electronic things easily, and leaning into that, she opened up a small town shop called The Fix-It Witches with her family. In this world witches have to hide their magic and I love that they do so in a clever way to also be able to make a living. There is talk about charging their clients and how Danica manages to make sure the clients are not around when she does the actual magic. I appreciated these kinds of details.

I love the familial relationships. Titus, the bisexual virgin baker, owns the bakery with his sister and they have an extremely complicated relationship with their father. I thought this part was handled really well. Titus has his own issues with him, but so does his sister and he tries so hard to be there for her. I also love how Danica has to balance her family relationships. Her grandmother is so sweet – they are obviously close but one of my favorite moments comes when she is clearly hurt that Danica has been pulling away. There’s a good reason for it, but it’s complicated. I think that part was explored really well. Her cousin however, I never got a great grasp on. She was clearly mad at Danica the entire time for being with Titus. We know why but I was never satisfied with the answer – it didn’t make sense to me.

What I didn’t love:

The miscommunication about mundanes. Mundanes are non-magical people in this world and Danica has grown up knowing that if she marries a mundane her magic will become muted and her family will become distant from her. But what I didn’t quite believe in the world-building was that it only impacted Danica’s family line, and Danica really didn’t question this. She’s a smart woman! Why wouldn’t she question it?? It is an incredibly important plot point as Titus, the love interest, is mundane, her cousin has huge issues with mundane/magical love matches. But her entire life is basically built on a lie as it turns out that her mother lied to her. That really bothered me because it felt like the author didn’t know what she wanted to do with it exactly. 

There are also some late to the party third act complications that felt shoe-horned in, which if they were mentioned just a tad bit earlier as drops here and there wouldn’t have felt as out of left field to me. I don’t mind later issues like that but I don’t love when it’s so jarring.

I really enjoyed the book and I love Ann’s writing. She’s always extremely inclusive and includes consent – two things I value in my romance. But those parts I pointed out kept it from being one I loved. I’m definitely going to keep reading in the series in the hope I like the next one more. 

Disclosure: I am friendly with Ann on social media.

Grade: B – 

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