Selena Blackstone is a librarian, a book lover, and a witch. She is an outcast in her small town of Brimrock and most days prefers books over people anyway. It's good she can find peace in books because she is actually cursed that she can never leave her town because her grandmother did an awful thing and was cursed for it.

Enter Aiden O'Hare, an introverted paranormal investigator who really doesn't believe in the paranormal. He travels the world to investigate strange happenings, and tries to disprove them. With the story of Selena’s grandmother being a witch, he is soon brought to town to investigate.

Investigating leads him to Selene, and Selene tries to do everything in her power to get him to stop his investigation.

This was a nice cute read and i enjoyed my time with the book.

This book just really isn't my speed and something I would normally like but with that in mind, it definitely got me in the mood for Halloween and the spooky fall season. It was unique and sweet.

This book grabbed my attention since I’ve recently started reading light paranormal romance. The idea of a Black witch librarian sounded interesting!

Selene Blackstone is a witch stuck in her hometown of Brimrock, Massachusetts, because of a curse put on her grandmother Luna over 40 years ago. She is self-taught in the realm of lunar magic because her mother didn’t want to talk about it and didn’t pass along any witchy wisdom at all before she died. Luna disappeared all those years ago, so Selene is all alone, except for her best friend Noelle and Noelle’s aunt Bibi. She’s scorned in the town due to her vaguely ominous family history. She is described as a woman with brown skin, dark curly hair and fleshy thighs, but her Blackness doesn’t seem to play a role other than her physical description.

Aiden and Eddie are best friends and paranormal investigators who co-host an online video show. They come to Brimrock for the holidays, to spend two weeks with Eddie’s family who live there. They’re also going to do research on Luna Blackstone, whom the townsfolk claim was an evil witch who continues to haunt the area and cause mysterious, unexplained events. There’s a lot of rumor and blame placed on the Blackstones, but I found it frustrating that nobody, including Selene, really knows much about her grandmother or mother, both of whom are gone.

Aiden and Selene cross paths, hit it off, and then find out who the other really is. There’s some angst, but not a ton. I was never super-invested in their ups and downs, but I did enjoy their sarcastic senses of humor and banter. There is some fairly steamy sex in the book, but not a lot of it. You can easily skip those few scenes if they’re not your thing.

Adventures and investigations ensue. This isn’t a hard-hitting mystery, if that’s what you’re looking for. It is light and fun and a bit snarky, which I liked.

Many times, the language and descriptions seemed awkward to me and took me out of the flow of the story. Like a paper was described as off-white, the color of “rotten eggnog.” What? Who has seen rotten eggnog to know what color that is? Aiden and Eddie’s van is quite frequently described as a 1976 Dodge Caravan. I didn’t think minivans were a thing until the 1980s and it was oddly mentioned so often that I googled it and found that Caravans didn’t come out until 1984. At one point, characters debate whether they should wait 30 minutes for a ride or walk 3 blocks. How long are those blocks?! Aiden’s basil allergy is integral to the story, yet he happily eats pesto chicken. Um, if that pesto was made with basil like most pesto is, he’s in trouble! And Selene is CONSTANTLY pushing her glasses up her nose, which after a while seemed like awkward filler. There were enough of those things that bugged me and brought me out of being immersed in the story. That said, it wasn’t enough to make me quit the story, and overall, I did enjoy it. This is a maybe recommendation for me. If you read a ton and have a few hours to spend on a light, kind of steamy, witchy, kind of mysterious story, then go for it.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for making this book available to read.
I'm not sure if I was in the right mood, but I really enjoyed reading this paranormal romance. The setting and the situations the characters were in, just added to the whole 'feel' of the novel. It was light, and fun and had the right amount of angst between Selene and Aiden.
Towards the end, I was saddened by Eddie and Aiden's relationship, which probably cost half a star. Hopefully we see more of Aiden and Selene travelling in the next book.
3.5 stars