In Charm’s Way by Lana Harper is a queer paranormal romance and the fourth book in The Witches of Thistle Grove series (3/5 stars)

In Charm’s Way by Lana Harper is a queer paranormal romance and the fourth book in The Witches of Thistle Grove series.

Delilah Harlow is still dealing with the aftereffects of the power surge that practically wiped her memory. She hates how her usually sharp mind has become unreliable, and resorts to trying blood magic to boost her healing capacity. There are unfortunate side effects, including being catnip to malevolent supernatural creatures. And then a mysterious stranger comes into town just in time to save her soul.

I’m always happy to pick up another book in this series. I love the town of Thistle Grove and I’ve been eating up the macro plot about the source of the town’s magic. We get a little bit more of said macro plot in this installment, which helped keep my interest.

We pick up the story about half a year after the events of the previous book. Delilah is (understandably) full of rage about her situation, but it felt like she just kept holding onto it and refused to let steam off slowly. She kept pushing away the people closest to her, which also didn’t help to engage me. I also wasn’t a huge fan of the main relationship in this book, because it’s kind of toxic.

That being said, the ending was a wonderful payoff for me. There’s a lovely group spell thing that I really enjoyed.

The series is made up of:

Payback’s A Witch (4.25/5 stars)
From Bad to Cursed (4.5/5 stars)
Back in a Spell (4.5/5 stars)

This series is definitely one of my absolute favorites in the “witchy small town” genre. I really enjoyed books two and three in this series, but this entry didn’t quite hit me in the same ways as those did. I think it’s mostly because I didn’t identify with the main character here as much as I did with those books, and I didn’t fully dig the main relationship.

Tropes in this book include: strangers to lovers, sapphic, forced proximity

CW: violence, trauma, panic attacks

I received a copy of this book to review. All opinions contained herein are my own.

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