Listen, I am a Sarah Henning fan, and all of the magic that makes me love her is on full, luscious display in this book. She called this one ‘Knives Out with Magic’ for a while, and it lives up to the comp. A shocking murder, power struggle, magical inheritance, and a ticking clock to end all ticking clocks means the stakes for this one are HIGH. Our POV characters are Ruby—a girl who is hired along with her sister to accompany an elderly woman to a dinner party posing as her granddaughters—and Auden—the middle grandson of the HWIC of a secret coven of witches. When Auden’s grandmother is murdered presumably by the woman that hires Ruby, the house goes into magical lockdown until the culprit can be found. Problem? Nona appears to have left the building, and her fake granddaughters in it to take the heat. 

Ruby is a quietly compelling character, bookish and careful, with tons of heart and kindness that makes her easy to root for. Auden is perhaps a bit less immediately compelling, but his brand of quiet care matches Ruby’s in a way that makes you want to ship them like fedex from jump. The cast of young supporting characters are varied, rich, and interesting in unique ways that makes you legitimately want all of to thrive even in the hellish circumstances they find themselves in. 

As usual, Henning is a master of creating environments that feel lush and ideal and aspirational. Extra props to her here for also creating a world that is credible. I was literally at the renaissance faire mentioned two weeks ago, and could visualise the hills and mountains of the rockies in her words.  

My literal only beef with this one is in the copyedits. This book is a prime example of why human eyes are VITAL to the editing process. There were countless examples of missed homophones in the text (suggesting Sarah may use some speech-to-text software in her drafting— totally normal and a vital tool for accessibility that should not count against her EVER.) off the top of my head I noticed a welp that should have been whelp, a ring that should have been wring, a shutters that was supposed to be shudders, and strangely, a Columbine (proper noun) when it should have been columbine (plant). There were more examples of this, as well as sentences that felt like they meant nothing that clearly needed editing. I hope the team can catch and rectify this before the book hits shelves, because it’s legitimately a spectacular YA magical mystery offering that deserves all the success and sales it can get. This is the only reason I’m withholding a five star review.