3.5 I loved this a lot! Surprisingly so! It had more romance than I expected going in and the romance is the main reason this isn’t close to 5 stars tbh. I wish I was the type of person who loved romance—as a genre—more. I wish I wasn’t so nit-picky about it all the time. I wish I wasn’t so hard to please. My life as a reader would be more fun and easy, especially when I love these types of fantasy so much. I think objectively, there isn’t anything BAD about the romance. A few details here and there that annoyed me (mostly something that felt to me too insta-love/devotion, and I found the male love interest a little too protective), but I think overall people who like romance will at least enjoy this one a little. THAT SAID, everything else in the book, I LOVED. Honestly, I love witches so much but I find it hard to find books that really scratch the itch properly. There’s always something lacking. But this did scratch the itch! There’s a lot of craft involved (which is something that often is lacking in witchy books), there are different types of magic and witches, a coven system, traditions, spookiness, coziness, etc. It takes place close to and on Halloween, and the vibes are there. There are ghost rituals, and pumpkin decorating, and a Dark Lord, and secrets. I wish the ending had involved less the love interest and more the MC’s sisters and her coven. The book suffered, I think, from the “there’s no time” flaw, where everything is packed into a really short period of time. There are story reasons for this, in part, but I always feel like things are too rushed—especially feelings. Some of the story beats are a little cliché/overdone, but honestly I didn’t mind too much. Maybe because I enjoyed the witchy stuff so much, I didn’t mind overlooking the other flaws. I hope the author revisits this universe.