A LETTER TO THREE WITCHES

What happens when a family of witches is forced to suppress their powers?

Gwen Engel is a witch. Well, sort of. Decades ago, the Grand Council of Witches banned her family from practicing witchcraft—all because her great-great-grandfather accidentally started a little something called the Dust Bowl. The name of Gwen’s upstate New York business, Abracadabra Odd Job Service, is the only vestige of her magical heritage. That is, until she and her cousins Milo and Trudy receive a letter from Tannith, Gwen’s distant cousin and adoptive sister. Tannith, who spends her days talking with her cat familiar and spying on her family, informs her cousins that she's moving to New York City and taking one of their boyfriends, whom she's enchanted, with her. Whose boyfriend, you might ask? Well, that’s left up to the cousins to figure out. After receiving this life-altering letter, the supernatural abilities inherent in each cousin start to spill out, and magical mayhem unfolds: “Trained or not, we were all witches. Stifle a talent too long, and it was bound to exhibit itself one way or another.” Filling her book with talking animals, toad transmogrification, and love spells, Bass leans heavily into the cliché. Lacking any worldbuilding except for Witchbook, Cackle, eCharmed, and BrewTube, the cringingly named websites for witches, the novel teeters between trite and amusing and is ultimately saved by some surprising twists and the cousins’ enjoyable banter.

A lighthearted supernatural romp.