I love this series. It's what got me out of a years-long reading slump, and for that I will always be grateful. It's a witch living in a historic home-turned-library with a black cat familiar in a small town...what's not to love?

With that said, this book went differently than I thought it would. Still worth a read if you enjoy this series, but it's very much NOT a stand-alone book. You need to know these characters and the backstories for this to make sense. 

If you read the other books, it's great Josie and Sam are finally together in this one, but you get almost no real peek into their relationship. Barely morsels after all that build up. I was ready for more of their love story. I'm also annoyed that her magic lesson was about courage, but she wasn't courageous enough to tell Sam about being a witch? Maybe the author is building to that? I have a feeling he knows already given his role in book 1.