BINGO – HEART
Vivienne knows better than to mix vodka and witchcraft. She does. But when her cousin recommends a harmless bit of non-magic to curse Rhys, the man who breaks her heart after a wild and passionate summer, she can’t resist. Though she and her cousin Gwen are real witches, they’re aren’t about to do a real piece of magic. It’s mostly a symbolic exercise to help Vivienne move on. Nine years later, Rhys comes back to town to find that things just aren’t going his way. What starts as a string of bad luck grows to near-fatal accidents. The magic around town also starts to go haywire. Oops, turns out that curse Vivienne cast was real. Now Vivienne and Rhys must figure out how to break the curse before someone gets hurt but being together in the same town again is bringing up old passions and desires. Can they keep their hands off each other longer enough to get to the bottom of what’s going on?
Though this book has fantasy elements such as magic and witches and ghosts and ley lines, The Ex Hex is first and foremost a romance. If you are looking for a well-developed magic system with an interesting take on magic and witchcraft, this is not for you. When magic occurs, little more than a few words are used to essentially inform the reader that magic happened. And then we move on.
Vivienne and Rhys have fantastic chemistry with each other. They are back in the early stages of a relationship where everything is heat and spark and in-the-moment, and it’s very fun to read. I do wonder about the ability to sustain their relationship, but that’s a future problem. On the periphery a little is Vivienne’s family: her cousin Gwen and Aunt Elaine. These two women are wonderful characters that I wish had a little bit more time in the story. Their struggles with the magic around going haywire are eschewed in favor of exploring the romance between Vivienne and Rhys. Which, I get it. This is a romance. The romance should take center stage, but I would totally read a non-romance retelling of this story from the viewpoint of Gwen and Aunt Elaine.