HEX EDUCATION

Kilmer returns to suburbia in this white-collar tale of magic, mayhem, and sisterhood.

Twenty years ago, on an otherwise peaceful evening in September, the Hawthorne Hall dormitory at North Valley University burned to the ground. The cause of the fire was never determined, but Sarah Nelson and her best friends, Katrina Andrews and Alicia Lipschitz, know the truth: Their inexperienced, currently estranged coven was responsible for the damage done that fateful night. Now a luxury realtor with a handsome husband, charming twins, and an opinionated, four-legged familiar who enjoys binge watching pay-per-view movies, Sarah still dabbles in magic from time to time. Who wouldn’t want a little extra help cleaning the house or keeping raccoons out of the trash? But when an unexpected reunion makes the friends' innate magical abilities go haywire and, to make matters worse, a true crime podcaster starts investigating the cause of the fire, Sarah, Katrina, and Alicia are forced to reconcile with their powers before more irreparable damage is done. At its core, this novel is a love letter to the witchy stories that have come before it. Readers will appreciate the inspiration that Kilmer has taken from The Craft, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and even Charmed as Sarah and her coven navigate keeping their secret safe, protecting their families, and dealing with the often unexpected side effects of magic. Unfortunately, nostalgia isn’t enough to propel this story forward, and this falls short of Kilmer’s campy debut novel, Suburban Hell (2022). Sarah’s domestic use of magic in her day-to-day life is delightful—a scene in which her refrigerator stocks itself with 30 pounds of sandwich meat of its own accord is laugh-out-loud funny—but it's dragged down by an underdeveloped plot and two-dimensional characters.

A lighthearted witchy romp that pays homage to its predecessors but is cursed by uneven pacing.