Old Flames and New Fortunes (A Moonville Novel)
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Romina Tempest is a witch, or more precisely, a “flora fortunist”, who uses the special attributes of specific flowers and plants to create love charms and other magical fortunes at The Magick Happens - a store she co-owns with her sisters, Luna and Zelda, and best friend Trevor Yoon in charming fictional Moonville, Ohio.
When an ill-advised land purchase made to expand their business backfires due to a host of problems, they plan to try to get Trevor’s successful business tycoon father to pony up the cash. There’s just one tiny problem … Trevor has the emotional maturity and decision-making skills of any random 12-year old boy and daddy’s been burned by it before. Not so fast, kiddo.
Daddy Daniel does come to town, but it’s not to hear their sales pitch … it’s to get remarried, and his bride-to-be? She’s the mom of Romina’s high school ex and one true love, Alex King, who’s come along for the festivities. Things didn’t end well for them, and there were hurt feelings on both sides, but is fortune giving them another chance at love now that they’re older?
Romina’s not going to make it easy for him. She and Trevor both have exes in town and what better way to make those two reconsider what they lost than to claim that they’re dating EACH OTHER, because lies and deceit always make things better, right? (facepalm)
I’m going to leave it at that, because this book is 384 pages and I haven’t even scratched the surface of the plot, so I’ll just jump to my thoughts on this, starting with what worked:
▪️ Romina and Alex were fascinating characters with relatable issues that grew on me as the story progressed. It took awhile, but by the end I felt invested in what the future would hold for them and hoped for their HEA! They had good chemistry, even if I wasn’t totally blown away by it.
▪️ There was an extremely unexpected twist in Part Two that I wasn’t sure I liked at first but ultimately did and thought it worked well with the plot.
▪️ The town of Moonville is magical and charming, so big points for the setting!
▪️ The story is well-written and I loved the details of what all the different flowers meant. Heading each chapter with a different flower and fortune was so clever!
Unfortunately, there was quite a bit that didn’t win me over:
▪️ This is my second Sarah Hogle book - the first being Just Like Magic, which was SO adorable and fun! This … was not, and I’m pretty bummed about it. Whereas Just Like Magic had characters that made me laugh and there was such a feeling of playfulness and joy to it, the first half of this book was more like being stuck in a car for a cross-country trip with two teenagers sniping at each other like children. Not so fun.
▪️ There wasn’t a lot of fleshing out of the other characters outside of Romina and Alex, so I never felt very attached to any of them. Trevor was so one-dimensionally immature that it wasn’t funny. His bro-talk and snarky “playful” insults were more cringey than humorous.
▪️ The book was too looooong. Shave 50 pages and nothing important would be lost.
▪️ The sex talk was painfully juvenile. Grown adults referencing “dicks”, being “sixty-nined”, “boinking", among others (Really? We’re sure these aren’t teenagers?)
▪️ Speaking of juvenile, the whole first half of the book suffered from an immature tone, so the second half had to do a lot of heavy lifting to get me invested in the relationship. It got there eventually, but in many ways the damage was already done.
Despite the less preferred elements, it’s a decent story, and I liked it well enough, but this was a very different experience than my last read from Hogle. It looks like it may be the first in a series, and if it is, I’m really hoping Hogle lightens the mood and lets her characters grow up a bit next time around!
★★★
Thanks to PENGUIN GROUP Putnam | G.P. Putnam's Sons, NetGalley and author Sarah Hogle for this digital ARC to honestly review. It’s due to be published April 2, 2024.
When an ill-advised land purchase made to expand their business backfires due to a host of problems, they plan to try to get Trevor’s successful business tycoon father to pony up the cash. There’s just one tiny problem … Trevor has the emotional maturity and decision-making skills of any random 12-year old boy and daddy’s been burned by it before. Not so fast, kiddo.
Daddy Daniel does come to town, but it’s not to hear their sales pitch … it’s to get remarried, and his bride-to-be? She’s the mom of Romina’s high school ex and one true love, Alex King, who’s come along for the festivities. Things didn’t end well for them, and there were hurt feelings on both sides, but is fortune giving them another chance at love now that they’re older?
Romina’s not going to make it easy for him. She and Trevor both have exes in town and what better way to make those two reconsider what they lost than to claim that they’re dating EACH OTHER, because lies and deceit always make things better, right? (facepalm)
I’m going to leave it at that, because this book is 384 pages and I haven’t even scratched the surface of the plot, so I’ll just jump to my thoughts on this, starting with what worked:
▪️ Romina and Alex were fascinating characters with relatable issues that grew on me as the story progressed. It took awhile, but by the end I felt invested in what the future would hold for them and hoped for their HEA! They had good chemistry, even if I wasn’t totally blown away by it.
▪️ There was an extremely unexpected twist in Part Two that I wasn’t sure I liked at first but ultimately did and thought it worked well with the plot.
▪️ The town of Moonville is magical and charming, so big points for the setting!
▪️ The story is well-written and I loved the details of what all the different flowers meant. Heading each chapter with a different flower and fortune was so clever!
Unfortunately, there was quite a bit that didn’t win me over:
▪️ This is my second Sarah Hogle book - the first being Just Like Magic, which was SO adorable and fun! This … was not, and I’m pretty bummed about it. Whereas Just Like Magic had characters that made me laugh and there was such a feeling of playfulness and joy to it, the first half of this book was more like being stuck in a car for a cross-country trip with two teenagers sniping at each other like children. Not so fun.
▪️ There wasn’t a lot of fleshing out of the other characters outside of Romina and Alex, so I never felt very attached to any of them. Trevor was so one-dimensionally immature that it wasn’t funny. His bro-talk and snarky “playful” insults were more cringey than humorous.
▪️ The book was too looooong. Shave 50 pages and nothing important would be lost.
▪️ The sex talk was painfully juvenile. Grown adults referencing “dicks”, being “sixty-nined”, “boinking", among others (Really? We’re sure these aren’t teenagers?)
▪️ Speaking of juvenile, the whole first half of the book suffered from an immature tone, so the second half had to do a lot of heavy lifting to get me invested in the relationship. It got there eventually, but in many ways the damage was already done.
Despite the less preferred elements, it’s a decent story, and I liked it well enough, but this was a very different experience than my last read from Hogle. It looks like it may be the first in a series, and if it is, I’m really hoping Hogle lightens the mood and lets her characters grow up a bit next time around!
★★★
Thanks to PENGUIN GROUP Putnam | G.P. Putnam's Sons, NetGalley and author Sarah Hogle for this digital ARC to honestly review. It’s due to be published April 2, 2024.
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