Published September 11, 2023

Playing the Witch Card by KJ Dell’Antonia

Playing the Witch Card by KJ Dell’AntoniaPlaying the witch card by KJ Dell'Antonia
Published by GP Putnam's Sons on September 12, 2023
Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 352
Format: Paperback
Goodreads
four-stars

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

About Playing the Witch Card

This is the classic Hallmark story of a woman who moves to a small town to start over after a jerk ex implodes their lives but with a paranormal twist. Flair’s descended from witches but a tragic accident in her past made her give it up. But now she’s back in Rattleboro, the town her witchy ancestors helped found and the magic isn’t willing to be ignored any longer.

Flair already has a lot on her plate – dealing with a struggling business, an angry and angsty teen daughter, a flaky mom, and a jerk ex. Now tarot cards are haunting her with visions and then a magical disaster involving her mom and ex happens with a looming Halloween deadline.

My thoughts about Playing the Witch Card

The writing is gorgeously atmospheric and descriptive, you can practically smell autumn magic and baking in the air. I love that Rattleboro goes so hard at Halloween that they spray glitter on the sidewalks.

The relationships – especially between Flair, her mother, and her daughter – are complex and complicated, a study in contrasts. Flair isn’t close with her mom, Cyn, who was always chasing the next sure thing based on the tarot cards. This in turn has made Flair want stability and control with nothing left chance – making her daughter Lucie feel smothered.  

And it wouldn’t be Hallmark-esque without the gorgeous high school BF turning up for a sweet, second-chance romance. Jude and Flair are adorable together – chocolatier and baker – so perfect!

In closing

For fans of In the Shadow Garden by Liz Parker and Small Town, Big Magic by Hazel Beck.

Thank you GP Putnam’s Sons for the ARC of Playing the Witch Cars.

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About KJ Dell’Antonia

KJ Dell’Antonia is the author of the The Chicken Sisters, a New York Times bestseller, a Reese Witherspoon book club pick and a timely, humorous exploration of the same themes she has long focused on in her journalism: the importance of finding joy in our families, the challenge of figuring out what makes us happy and the need to value the people in front of us more than the ones in our phones and laptops, every single time.

Her next novel, In Her Boots, about the gap between the adults we think we have become, the child our mother will always see and our horrible fear that our mother is right, is coming Summer 2022 and is available for pre-order now.

She wrote and edited the Motherlode blog at the New York Times and is also the author of the viral essay Why I Didn’t Answer Your Email and the book How to Be a Happier Parent. She is also known for being unexpectedly quarantined in China with three small children and her mother, which was much more novel in 2009 than it is now.

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