I don’t typically like romance unless it’s got some other genre along to help build story and character; just the relationship parts gets kind of one note. I picked up The Ex Hex and it’s got enough magic going wrong that it works with the relationship. What I don’t quite get is why/how putting a Welsh magic town in the North Georgia mountains is even slightly believable. I know this is both romance and magic, so it’s not exactly realism forward, btu that’s going too far. Why name the setting that way and then making it seem more like New England where you’d expect things like this?
There’s a good bit of predictable with Viv and Rhys, and their first meeting at 19, apparently spectacular break up (which we only gets bits about; there’s probably more info about their social media stalking each other over the next decade), and then running into each other again about nine years later. Both are witches from witchy families, although apparently Viv didn’t know about the magic world until pretty late in her life because of her mom wanting to avoid it. Yes, this is a grown-up version of Halloweentown.
The magic problem is actually kind of real in that it involves drunk teen Viv post break-up with her witchy cousin Gwen cursing Rhys with bad hair and bad sex; the curse works even though not the way it was meant to, so now older Rhys is back in town and he and Viv need to break the curse to save the town’s magic which gets affected. Some of the results seem to have come out of cartoons, and once the actual adults (Viv’s aunt and Rhys’ dad) get involved, there’s some serious magic to do and figure out.
The love over vengeance in the end almost makes the good-bye (but not really because this is romance) real-ish but given that there are still pages left at that point, you know that’s not the end. Even more so now that there’s one sequel out and another apparently in the works. It’s a fun quick read although the initial attraction never really gets explained, the relationships is a fun one and you want it to work out, and it mostly does.