How to Charm a Nerd returns readers to the fun and witchy world of the WiCKed Sisters, and it's all the best of romance and autumn combined! I love the found-family vibes of the female friendships and the hero is cinnamon roll perfection. - USA Today bestselling author Joanne Rock

I loved the premise for this book. Witch x D&D nerd! Super cute love it, with themes of grief, dementia, and finding inner self. I was on bored. There was a bit of a kitchy feel to the witchcraft, thats in a lot of books like this but it definitely had the witchy vibe without the fantasy that a lot of books have. I was a bit disappointed with the romance because there wasnt really any chasing or build it, there was just tension that was already there into relationship.
Overall a good read!

Thank you to the author and Netgalley for this read!

I had high hopes but was disappointed with the lack of character development. The spiciness was a bit over done in my opinion.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an Ebook ARC of this story, this is my objective review. I'll preface by saying I wasn't the right audience for this book as it just didn't draw me in that much. The fmc Liberty runs a witchcraft shop with her two friends. The mmc Merle is one of the friend's cousin, a D&D gamer and computer programmer who feels like an outcast in his family. At the beginning of the story Liberty is trying to track down her biological father with Merle's help. There is mutual physical attraction, open door romance with lots of sparks, although there didn't seem to be a lot of groundwork laid for why the reader should care about their relationship. Overall, both personalities felt over-laden with quirky nerdy/witchy stereotypes. A bit over-the-top and one-dimensional, which made them both harder to relate to, although the over-arching message of being true to yourself did resonate with me. Unfortunately I didn't find Liberty to be very likeable, and the resolution of the father search was disappointingly anticlimactic, especially given the heavy focus it had throughout much of the book. Please note a content warning for Alzheimer's in a loved one. This is the second in a series but not hard to follow and works okay-ish as a standalone, I probably won't go back and read the first one as I didn't feel engaged with this one. Overall a quick steamy read, and I think it will appeal to others but this wasn't the book for me. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3 stars.

Missed out on book 1, but this latest work just made me want to remedy that asap. It was such a lovely modern, slight paranormal romance that i enjoyed over a weekend.

Thank you to Harlequin - Romance | Afterglow Books by Harlequin and NetGalley for providing an eARC for a honest review.

loved this romance and her mom wants her to date this guy she has these amazing friends who are all dealing with different relationship issues . loved that she found her way in the job and found love

This book was fun. I love skinny king rep in books and unapologetic nerds. I went into this a bit blind and had an overall fun time. I felt that Merle the MMC's background and issues with his family was well developed. Liberty's not so much. It's not that I couldn't relate but this book does get a bit repetitive at times. It's one of those romances where something happens and we see that actively in a scene but then also have to hear Liberty debrief about it with her friends and it's more of what we already know again.

I loved their chemistry, personally and also spicy wise. I liked the push pull of Liberty going through something in personal life that's really emotional and unrelated to Merle but their discussions on what's real between them and not using Merle as just a distraction.

I am not that familiar with D&D but love reading about it in books (one day I'll conceptualize it all together). I loved Merle folding Liberty into his group and all those little details I actually did love. I thought that was such a sweet way to show care and romance Merle trying to imagine what character Liberty would enjoy being etc.

But again, I didn't find myself wanting to pick this up, not in a bad way just an indifferent one which is a bummer cause I was really excited for it. I would pick this up if you like things on the slower side. I am so intrigued by her other friend so I might try again with this series.

Thank you to Harlequin/afterglow for the eARC!

I enjoyed it. The characters are delightful and the plot was pretty good. For the subject matter, though, I struggled to get into it as fully as I'd like. Diverting read but maybe lacking a bit of magic.

I want to like this book, but just can't quite get there. With some polishing and little bit more plot development it has the potential to be a really fun read.

This book was fine. The characters are interesting and very “real”. But I guess that was my issue. Two people that like each other decide to date. They have great sex. They realize they are in love. The family issues aren’t that hard to get past. And her witchiness is not fantastic magic. She is a modern witch, that we could all meet are the spirituality bookstore. There is nothing wrong with any of that. It just didn’t hold on to me the way I wish it had. (I read an ARC)

I loved this book so much! The writing was really good and the romance was so cute. I would highly recommend this book!

I went into this one blind and it was really
Fun! I was not expecting fall/witchy vibes but I was loving it. A fun book with loveable characters, some family stuff written with good sensitivity toward the subjects. Overall, cute and easy little romance that’s perfect for fall.

Loved this one! Great and fun read. Highly recommend.
Many thanks to the publisher, Netgalley, and the author for my ARC.

Rating - 5/5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Date Read - May 30, 2024
Publication Date - August 20, 2024

*I received an E-ARC of this book for free in exchange for an honest review* - Thank you @katherinegarbera, @harlequinbooks and @netgalley!

Originally, I gave this book 4 stars but I had to go back and change it to 5 stars because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the story! It’s not perfect but that’s okay because the vibes were vibing and it has stayed on my mind weeks later. How to Charm a Nerd is Book 2 in an interconnected series so you don't need to read the first one but there are some spoilers. This book is super descriptive, just like Book 1, which I love! The Autumn vibes are strong from the first page... I will have to re-read this book in Fall but reading it now got me so excited for my favourite season! I have never played Dungeons and Dragons but I've always been curious and never knew it was so complicated! I did feel like the spice took away from the emotional connection between the main characters at times. I would say that I enjoyed this book more for the character struggles and growth rather than the romance. I could relate to both characters and felt more invested in this book compared to the first one. There are also many good messages about positivity, change, acceptance and being yourself throughout the book that I needed to hear.

Get excited to read How to Charm a Nerd, available August 20! 🎉

*Please check trigger warnings*

Not my cup of tea. This book felt long and repetitive between what could have been a fun steamy story of a HEA.
I usually love witch romances but I guess I enjoy the more fantasy paranormal type and not the "real life" witch type.

I found Merle very likable when not annoyed by his lack of self confidence. I found Liberty a touch annoying but that likely relates to my own personal feelings about tarot cards etc.
It felt like they were repeating or recapping the trains they couldn't be together over and over and then suddenly everything was resolved.
There's also a major plot point that's hyped throughout the book and most definitely ends up being anticlimactic. Not to mention the mother having a very odd reaction about it all and from an outsiders perspective being overly dramatic.

How to Charm a Nerd accomplished the mission, this nerd is thoroughly charmed!!

How to Charm a Nerd is the second book in the WiCKed Sisters series by Katherine Garbera and I LOVED IT! The characters in this story, Merle and Liberty, are familiar if you have had the chance to read the first book in this series (The Bookbinder’s Guide to Love). Liberty is a tarot loving earthy witch, and Merle is an adorable D&D nerd who find themselves unable to resist each other. As they get closer and closer they realize that although neither of them wanted love, they may have just lucked into the real thing.

First of all, these characters are just EVERYTHING!! Liberty is headstrong and knows what she wants with a confidence that is next level. However, getting to read through her experiences with her family just connected with me deeply (and I think it connects for our amazing author as well). Merle also remained a nerdy fellow, but he still had some extremely sexy moments. Which if you haven’t guessed already, these characters had explosive chemistry and the spice is delicious!

My only remaining question after this book is that there was one particular plot element and fateful meeting that was built up throughout the whole story. I wanted to know more about this fateful meeting. I need more! In some ways it was a bit anticlimactic at times which I think some readers may not enjoy as much, but I feel like this rang true for real life meetings like this at times. But for exactly how this might play out, you’ll have to read this and find out!

I cannot say enough how much I loved this story. I loved returning to this universe and I’m begging Katherine Garbera for our last WiCKed Sister book! Check this out asap - you’ll love it!

As someone who's semi-familiar with both pagan traditions and D&D, I really liked the concept of this book. However, I do think it fell short execution-wise. I felt like both Merle and Liberty were kind of... flat. I saw a lot of them, but I didn't particularly connect to them.

It was still interesting/fun to read, just not a favorite of mine.

Cute story overall. I really enjoyed Liberty and Merle as characters. They are very similar to my husband and I, so I had high hopes for this book. It was really fun to see him teach her about D&D and to see her not struggle with who she is and what she is passionate about. One thing I did not care for was the amount of public smut scenes. I can understand one, MAYBE TWO, but 4.5 scenes in public is just too much for me especially when Merle owns his own home. However, other than that it was a great story about a boy and a girl who help each other find themselves.

Whelp. I’m the first to admit, this isn’t my usual fare. The romance genre is not my wheelhouse. But while browsing NetGalley the title caught my eye, and witchy things and D&D are 100% my wheelhouse so I figured sure, why not. Really, any book genre can be in my thing if it’s a good book.

Here’s my issue. It feels like the author has never actually met someone who reads tarot, and especially has never encountered someone who plays D&D. These characters were written so incredibly one note and stereotypical, as if a quick google search was done for research and it was decided that was good enough. The word “nerdy” was increeeeeedibly overused, it literally can be found on almost every page. OMG, he’s soooooo nerdy! We get it. Also, anyone who is actually into any of these things knows they all go hand in hand, they are not separate worlds and it’s not a shock for these two people to find each other.

I could not care about anything that happened to these two because these googled tropes were just beat to death page after page.

So, yeah. I suppose this book is more for people who are just looking for romance books then for people who are interested in books about people who are into things like goth culture, tarot, spell casting, gaming, D&D etc, because those people will see right through these one note characters and leave unsatisfied (pun intended). 2 stars for the attempt, at least a google search was done.

But seriously, if someone calls it a D&D game, literally no one is going to say “aaaactually it’s a campaign”. Stop it.

I find romcoms so enjoyable. This book was no different. I found it so entertaining and I think most readers also would.