Katie Chandler is back in New York and at Magic, Spells, and Illusions, Inc. – and just in time. The city’s in the grip of a magical crime wave from spells that wizarding whiz Owen Palmer thinks look awfully familiar, and the rogue firm Spellworks is raising its profile in the magical world by selling protective amulets. It’s Katie’s job as the new director of marketing for MSI to fight this battle of public perception while Owen and the other wizards try to uncover what’s really going on.
What Katie doesn’t realize is that her idea to stage a showcase for MSI’s magical achievements is playing right into a devious plot more than three decades in the making. Now Katie has to do damage control that has nothing to do with marketing. To save the magical world, she’ll have to prove who the real enemy is, and doing that will require digging deeper into Owen’s mysterious past than he wants anyone to go. If she fails, she not only stands to lose a magical war, but she could also lose the man she loves.
What Katie doesn’t realize is that her idea to stage a showcase for MSI’s magical achievements is playing right into a devious plot more than three decades in the making. Now Katie has to do damage control that has nothing to do with marketing. To save the magical world, she’ll have to prove who the real enemy is, and doing that will require digging deeper into Owen’s mysterious past than he wants anyone to go. If she fails, she not only stands to lose a magical war, but she could also lose the man she loves.
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You guys. YOU GUYS. Shanna Swendson wrote another book in her Enchanted, Inc. series! Yes! These books are an old love of mine, the first one recommend to me when I worked at Barnes & Noble. Thank goodness for the employee discount cause trade paper or not I proceeded to buy each and every one because they were so much fun to read. Katie is a down-to-earth lady from Texas trying to live her life in NY, and her combination of quick wit, humor, and intelligence in the face of danger make her a joy to read. Throughout all the novels we see her interacting with a number of mundane people and magical creatures, and Swendson does a fantastic job at making each one both unique and seemingly 'normal'. Just because Sam is a gargoyle who spends most of his shift watching out for magical dangers doesn't mean he can't swoop down and have a quick convo with Katie during her lunch break.
In this latest installment Swendson introduces us to the 'after HEA' of Katie and Owen. After a few books of slow build-up Katie and Owen finally got to defeat the bad guy and be together. These may not be the sexiest of books, but the way Owen blushes when he gets Katie coffee or buys her chocolate and flowers for her birthday is adorable (and leaves me smiling every time). We're introduced to a new big and bad in this book, one who's been behind the scenes, setting up himself to be head honcho of the whole magical realm, and there's a good bit of action at the end which Swendson handles well without going over the top. I don't want to be spoil-ery but the very end of the book was a BIG surprise, just because it was so unexpected, but I can happily say that Katie and Owen are still the wonderful couple we've come to love from previous books and I highly recommend this whole series to anyone who likes a feel good adult fairy tale.
Overall Feeling - A-
Series - 1) Enchanted, Inc. 2) Once Upon Stilettos 3) Damsel Under Stress 4) Don't Hex With Texas 5) Much Ado About Magic
**Title requested from NetGalley**
