A Modern Witch
by Debora Geary
★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
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A Modern Witch by Debora Gearey[/caption]Don’t go book shopping on Ambien.
Seriously.
Before I sat down to write this review, I wanted to have the book in front of me for referencing (and reminding…but I’ll get to that later). But the book had mysteriously disappeared off my e-reader. I checked Amazon to have it resent and it wasn’t there either. I checked my computer, my phone and…nothing. Vanished into thin air.
Almost like magic.
But it would be a real trick if I could go back in time and tell myself to just go to bed instead of going internet book shopping (and, no, I don’t know why I decided I needed a book right then because, HELLO, Ambien). Nothing good happens after Ambien. And A Modern Witch is a perfect example.
The premise (I think) sounded good:
Can you live 28 years without discovering you're a witch? — Lauren is downtown Chicago's youngest elite realtor. She's also a witch. She must be - the fetching spell for Witches' Chat isn't supposed to make mistakes. So says the woman who coded the spell, at least. — The tall, dark, and handsome guy sent to assess her is a witch too (and no, that doesn't end the way you might think). What he finds in Lauren will change lives, mess with a perfectly good career, and require lots of ice cream therapy. (Copied from Goodreads).
Witches casting spells on the internets? Sounds interesting, right?
Erroneous.
I’m going to warn you that this review will have spoilers. Why? Because there is so very little to spoil and what there is to spoil the book does a pretty freaking awesome job of doing it all by itself.
Modern Witch (thinking of an alternative title, like Spelled Out) kicked off with a witch named Nell creating some sort of code that will magically detect other witches who are innocently browsing the internet and redirect them to a chat room she’s set up. Because I’m sure all other magic-practicing folk don’t mind being chucked into a chat room in the middle of paying their cable bill. Apparently 21st century witches don’t brew potions, they brew malware.
As gosh-oh-golly luck would have it, the first witch to be spelled into the chat didn’t know she’s a witch! Lauren, a 20-something realtor showing million-dollar penthouses in Chicago, just wanted to order some ice cream through an online shopping program (yeah) when she’s cast into a chat with Nell, Moira (an old lady witch in Ireland) and Sophie (a witch specializing in plants).
The witches simply must test out Lauren’s powers, so they send Jamie, Nell’s playboy brother, to see what she can do. Of course, they seem flirtatious and you would assume they’re going to fall in love, but, as the synopsis says, it “doesn’t end the way you might think.” Way to go. First spoiler before you can even pick up the book.
I held on hope that maybe something surprising might still happen to keep them apart, though. Like maybe he dies or turns into a maple tree. I didn’t entertain those thoughts long, though, when Lauren’s irritatingly zen yoga teacher BFF, Nat, comes into the picture. If I still had any doubts (which I didn’t), they were long gone when Jamie has a powerful fit of precognition when Nat comes into the room.
And, in the literary world, precognition is a fancy word for SPOILER.
Okay, I know it doesn’t have to be this way. Plenty of books have characters that have precog powers that elude to the future, but Jamie’s moment all but hands the reader the cliff notes for the rest of the book. There’s Nat and Jamie dancing, doing yoga, opening presents at Christmas time, Jamie living in Chicago, and, of course, playing with a little boy that looks just like Nell’s frighteningly powerful 4-year-old son, Aervyn. (It took me so long to remember his name. I kept calling him Alabaster, which, if you’re curious, is a mineral).
Lauren, of course, is a freakishly powerful “mind witch” (who would write a story about a mediocre one?) and she flies out to Berkley with Jamie and, of course, Nat (whose seen Jamie’s precognition and seems eerily apathetic and not at all freaked out seeing herself having a baby with a man she’s known for a day).
The rest of the book goes like…
Blah blah Alabaster does something to prove he’s a powerful witch.
Blah blah the ladies sit on the computer and chat (Seriously? So much of this book is written like a chat transcript and it’s so painfully boring).
Blah blah Lauren is a powerful witch. Let’s talk about how powerful Lauren is. Oh, I know she didn’t really do anything. But she’s a powerful witch!
Blah blah Alabaster is so powerful.
Blah blah everyone in the family has triplets (most of which, thank God, weren’t written about. They took a backseat to Alabaster’s magnificence).
Blah blah Nat and Jamie do stuff he’s seen in his precog.
So, at this point, I’m near the end and I’m honestly scrolling past most paragraphs – BECAUSE I ALREADY KNEW WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN! Not just the precog thing, but the same things (the things I mentioned earlier in the great “blah bah” section) just repeated. Over and over.
There was this tiny glimmer of hope that something shocking would happen in the final four or five pages that would be so epic I’d forgive the crap I’d just put myself through. I mean, seriously, there was NO FREAKING POINT to this book. I rarely write in caps, but it’s serious business when I do. You can hear my tone more easily if you add a few “Really!!??”s to the caps).
I would hate to ruin the ending for you, but…
Blah blah Lauren moves to Berkley.
Blah blah Jamie moves to Chicago.
Blah blah Nat is pregnant.
Blah blah Alabaster is still powerful.
THE END!
Toot! Toot!
That was my own horn – because I think I just made this book sound more exciting that it really was.
But don’t take it from me. This book received wonderful reviews (see). Maybe I’m just in one of those moods where I have a thing against books with shallow characters and a plot that is more redundant than adding “at night” after 7 p.m.?
What I do know, however, is that nothing good happens after Ambien (aside from sleep).
Rating: [rating=1]
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