Meg Shaffer imagines a charming world of bookish magic in The Book Witch, a novel about a literature-loving heroine gone rogue that is sure to delight readers of all varieties.
Rainy March is a third-generation Book Witch and a proud member of the Ink and Paper Coven. "I'm not the pointy-hat kind with the broom and all that," she writes in her case files. "I'm a Book Witch. I'm here to set the story straight." When Rainy's archenemy dives into her favorite mystery series with the intent of ruining their storylines forever, Rainy goes after him to protect the page as written. Once the story is set back to rights, Rainy is bound by coven rules to jump back into her world--without Duke, the fictional detective she's fallen for.
Rainy tells her readers, "All stories are love stories if you love stories," and any reader worth their salt knows even banned magical interdimensional literary travel is no barrier to true romance. Rainy and Duke find ways to be together again, but their ability to bend and ultimately break key coven rules sends them into a world-jumping, story-hopping romp in which it becomes increasingly unclear whether they are in a romance, a horror, a mystery--or all of the above. The Book Witch is genre bending, clever, and chock-full of nods to tropes, story arcs, and beloved classics. Shaffer's interdimensional book travel can prove hard to follow at times--exactly what is the real world and what is a work of fiction here?--but perhaps the distinction doesn't matter so much, anyway. After all, as Rainy believes, "People... need stories. But stories also need people." --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer