FORTUNE

After matching on a dating app, two unsuspecting people are magically dropped into a mysterious fantasy world.

Amanda Ward wants to believe she’s manifested success, but in truth, she’s struggling. A sexy text thread with her dating-app match, Manhattan venture capitalist Declan Thorne, is one of the few things that makes her feel like the most confident version of herself. When they finally meet, Declan turns out to be devastatingly handsome, but his intense personality sends Amanda scrambling for her tarot deck as a way to make their date feel more magical. Unfortunately, pulling the Wheel of Fortune card opens a portal that sends Amanda and Declan tumbling into a different world—the Kingdom of Wands. Forced to think on her feet, Amanda declares herself the Story Witch and Declan her loyal bodyguard—and to convince Wands’ sister-queens that she isn’t a spy, she agrees to put on nightly performances. While Amanda and Declan are forced to work together, they’re also looking for a way to get back to their own world. The mysterious force responsible for bringing the two of them to Wands is clearly connected to Amanda’s tarot deck, but the longer they remain in this magical realm, the more evident it becomes that Amanda possesses a secret power that’s just waiting for the opportunity to be unleashed. The latest book in Cast’s Towerfall series kicks off with a smoldering opening, but Amanda and Declan’s dynamic is cooled by the surprise teleportation that forces them into a dangerous setting and forces them to rely on each other in ways that have more to do with survival than romance. The tarot-based magic system is a unique element that helps the book stand apart in the romantasy genre, and there are moments of stunning prose, but Cast only skims the surface of the premise’s potential.

This tarot-rooted romantasy is full of spice, but ultimately fails to intrigue.