I do love reading a book about a close-knit family and Gwen Engle and her two cousins, Trudy and Milo, would certainly qualify. Their family is well-known in the witching community because of a great-great-grandfather who created a magical catastrophe that affected most of the United States. Because of his work, the whole family is forbidden from practicing magic for 150 years. Gwen's parents have always warned her and her cousin Tannith about the Watchers who might be keeping an eye on their family. Tannith was a distant cousin who was housed with Gwen's family since they were both young but she was never actually adopted. And my least favorite part of this book is the way that Gwen feels about Tannith, seemingly rejecting her for no reason. And that feeling was never really resolved for me. Other than that, I really enjoyed seeing Gwen and her family trying to NOT do magic but it keeps slipping out anyway. I have a feeling that, given another book in the series, the world-building will even out a bit as some things felt left undone but those were fairly minor but having some of the chapters being from the point of view of Tannith's familiar was really fun.
Three and a half stars
This book comes out January 25th, 2022
ARC kindly provided by Kensington Books and NetGalley
Opinions are my own
