Susan Velazquez Colmant

This mini-review series is to share updates about things I recently read or watched, and what aspects of them I’d like to see in my manuscript wishlist.

I was actually gifted an ARC copy of UNDER YOUR SPELL by Lauren Wood when I went to London Book Fair this year and it’s just released today so I want to do a mini-review of it.

I read it in one sitting when I was waiting to board my flight and I think that’s an indicator of how much I enjoyed this.

Book Description:

She only wants three things. He isn’t one of them… 

Dumped by her cheating ex, fired from her dream job, about to lose her flat: Clementine Monroe is not having a good day. So when her sisters get her drunk and suggest reviving a childhood ritual called the breakup spell, she doesn’t see the harm in it.
 
But now Clemmie has accidentally ruined a funeral, had her first one-night stand, and she’s stuck with a new job she definitely doesn’t want – spending six weeks alone with the gorgeous and very-off-limits rock star, Theo Eliott. 
 
He’s the most famous man on the planet. Her life’s a disaster. When it comes to love, Clemmie is learning you should be careful what you wish for…

Things I Liked and Now Want for My MSWL:

• “Maybe it’s magic, maybe it’s mundane” – it’s never made explicitly clear (well, at least not to me) if the spell that Clemmie and her sisters cast is a signifier of magic or just a series of very well-placed coincidences. I personally loved that it was kept ambiguous and the story never tried to answer that question. The focus was moreso on how Clemmie was reacting to these series of wishes coming true and grappling with what she wanted out of life
• The relationship between the three sisters – sometimes I can find portrayals of close sibling relationships to be a little too twee but I think what tempered it for me here was that Clemmie and her sisters had distinct personalities and that was reflected in the dynamics with each other
• Imperfect familial reconciliations – A major plot point is that Clemmie feels like her rockstar father has emotionally neglected her for most of her life and even chosen a toxic ex-boyfriend over her. In the climax of the novel, there is a heart to heart between them and although their relationship is left in a better place by the ending, it’s understood that one single conversation does not magically fix all of the pain caused over the years and there’s more work to be done
• A Third Act Break Up Where the Break-Up Felt Reasonable – A major pet peeve of mine in romances is when the third act break-up/misunderstanding just feels like drama for the sake of adding drama. You know, a basic miscommunication that could be easily cleared up if the characters just talked to each other. With Theo’s occupation as a rock star and Clemmie’s previous bad experience with paparazzi, there’s a really great conflict set up here that you understand both characters’ perspectives on why they feel that their relationship can’t work. And you truly get the feeling that if these two did break up and didn’t get back together, it would be a major “what if?” for them for the rest of their lives. As such, when they do get together in the end, you feel such a sense of joy!