Book Review: It Takes a Witch

On January 12, 2012 at 9:00 pm in Books

If you are looking for a light, fun read, It Takes a Witch, by Heather Blake, is an excellent choice. I got caught up in all sorts of life the past month or two and ended up going from reading three or four books a week to reading one in the last six weeks. I was astonished at myself. How could this have happened? Answer: lots of stress and lots of new games on my iPhone. I missed reading, but I felt like I needed something light to ease my way back in. While on an aimless ramble around Barnes & Noble, my eyes fell upon this:

It’s a mystery; I love mysteries. It’s got magic; I love magic. It’s got glitter on the cover. This bodes well for my desire for something light and fun.

It Takes a Witch is about Darcy Merriweather, a thirty-year-old divorcee, and her twenty-something sister Harper who have just come to live with their aunt in the Enchanted Village in Salem, Massachusetts. Aunt Ve invited them to come live with her and start learning about the family business, As You Wish. As You Wish is a service that will do anything, from finding sold out tickets to organizing your pantry or pretending to be a tooth fairy for a little girl (who’s daddy has a big mouth). Most of the time they fulfill their clients’ wishes with a lot of legwork, but sometimes it all comes down to magic.

Shortly after they move to the village, their aunt’s boyfriend is arrested for killing the proprietor of Lotions and Potions, the village equivalent of the The Body Shop. Darcy gets to learn more about life in their village while trying to find out who the real killer is.

I was actually pleasantly surprised with this book. It has everything you would expect: small-town secrets, complications, a dash of romance, but it is also capable of surprising you too. A lot of these theme mysteries, where you know immediately that it is the start of a series focused on [coffee, interior design, knitting, whatnot] come off a little flat. They have about as much personality as cookie cutter houses all lined up in a row. It Takes a Witch, however, has a great cast of quirky characters, and the setting is absolutely charming. The Enchanted Village is a haven for magic users, who hide in plain sight as a tourist attraction in their magic-themed part of Salem. I am slightly pissed that it isn’t a real place, because I would totally go there on vacation.

One of the things that impresses me with this book is the magic. Very often, when magic plays a part in a mystery, the detective is using magic, so the bad guy uses magic to cover his/her tracks, so the detective has to use more magic to find them, and so on. It becomes all about the magic. In Blake’s world, magic has so many rules that it plays a fairly small role in the whodunnit. The Crafters each have a specialized skill. The Merriweathers are Wishcrafters who can grant wishes like a fairy godmother, and each special skill comes with its own rules and regulations. Wishcrafters, for instance, can’t grant their own wishes, nor can they encourage people to make wishes around them, it has to be a pure, spontaneous wish made in their presence for their magic to work. They also can’t let non-Crafters find out about the magic, lest they lose their powers, so seeing Darcy meet people and try to figure out who is who is a fun element of the story.

All in all, I give It Takes a Witch five out of five on the Bubblegum Scale. It is a wonderful choice for a light read and I will probably end up buying the next book when it comes out.

Get to know [E]SaraB

[E]SaraB has crafted 316 article(s) for Persephone Magazine.

Glass artisan by day, blogger by night (and sometimes vice versa). SaraB has three kids, three pets, one husband and a bizarre sense of humor. Her glass pendants can be found at www.etsy.com/shop/AngryOwlStudio if you're interested in checking it out.

Tags: bok review, light reads, magical mystery, wish crafters book one

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17 responses to Book Review: It Takes a Witch

[E]queSarahSarah said on January 13, 2012 at 11:54 am

ooh. I just got another Amazon gift card yesterday… I think my Kindle needs this on it.
[M] freckle said on January 13, 2012 at 8:37 am

Mmm bubblegum. And light entertainment with magic and small town shenanigans (yes, Freckle learned a new word, isn’t she cute?), count me in.
Meghan Young Krogh said on January 12, 2012 at 10:02 pm

Um, this sounds awesome.
[E] Slay Belle said on January 12, 2012 at 9:44 pm

Is it weird that I like the very specific sub genre ‘witches in small towns’? As soon as you mentioned those key words, I was writing the title down.
- Meghan Young Krogh said on January 12, 2012 at 10:03 pm
  
  Do you have a list of recommended titles, off the top of your head? I would like to read more.
  - [E] Slay Belle said on January 13, 2012 at 8:05 pm
    
    Ok, this is a little less specific than ‘witches in small towns’. I went with ‘paranormal in small towns’.
    
    Dime Store Magic by Kelly Armstrong
    
    Bell, Book, and Murder by Rosemary Edgehill (collection of 3 novels)
    
    The Witch’s Daughter by Paula Brackston
    
    Tempest Rising by Nicole Peeler
    
    Witch Way to Murder by Shirley Damsgarrd
    
    Near Witch by Victoria Scwabb (which I have checked out to read and gets good reviews)
    
    The Magnolia League by Katie Crouch
    
    Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore
    
    Her Maggie Quinn series
    
    Not small town, but one of my favorite series — the Diana Tregard books by Mercedes Lackey
    
    Also, I swear that the Hallmark Channels Good Witch movies were based on a novel I once read but I can not remember the title of. Which is too bad, because it was really good.
- [E]SaraB said on January 13, 2012 at 2:12 am
  
  It’s no stranger than me classifying my books by flavor.
  - [E] pileofmonkeys said on January 13, 2012 at 7:19 am
    
    So, you lick them? That seems risky. And dry.
    - [E]SaraB said on January 13, 2012 at 7:37 am
      
      Not actual flavor, mental flavor. It’s kind of like one of those synesthesia things, the overall tone of a book is expressed in my head as a flavor, like light and fluffy books tend to be different kinds of candy and more complex books are savory. I have a small section that tastes like Chinese food, even though they have nothing Asian about them.
      - [E] Slay Belle said on January 13, 2012 at 9:43 am
        
        Tell us what’s in the Chinese Food flavor section. I’m curious!
        
        Meghan Young Krogh said on January 13, 2012 at 1:11 pm
        
        I need more specific examples too, please.
        
        [E]SaraB said on January 13, 2012 at 1:26 pm
        
        OK, John Moore and A. Lee Martinez have a salty instant gratification like delivery pizza or really cheap chinese, Christopher Fowler has the weird, unexpected blend of flavors that you get from good delivery chinese. Jessica Day George is in the cream filled pastry section, next to Patricia C. Wrede who is more of a fruit and custard tart. It’s very weird to talk about this, the flavors usually pop into my head without a name, and they can be kind of slippery to pin down.
        
        Meghan Young Krogh said on January 13, 2012 at 3:00 pm
        
        I like you.
        
        Are your bookshelves really organized this way?
        
        [E]SaraB said on January 13, 2012 at 4:24 pm
        
        They really are. :)
        
        Meghan Young Krogh said on January 13, 2012 at 4:27 pm
        
        I love you.
      - veruna said on January 13, 2012 at 9:44 am
        
        Ha! I thought my friends and I were the only people odd enough to do this! It’s really fun to watch other people’s faces when one of us describes a book as “caramel popcorn.” :D
        
        Also, this book looks really fun. Thanks for the suggestion. :)
        
        [E]SaraB said on January 13, 2012 at 1:28 pm
        
        Awesome! I can totally see caramel popcorn as a book flavor.