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New York Times

4 Romance Novels With Delicious Payoffs

A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping Consequences are the lifeblood of fiction; there's nothing more central to the novel than the question And then what happened? In A WITCH'S GUIDE TO MAGICAL INNKEEPING (Berkley, 352 pp., paperback, $19.99), Sera Swan knows all about consequences. The British Guild of Sorcery cast her out when she used a forbidden spell to revive her beloved great-aunt — and worse, the spell cost her most of her magic. Now she runs a charmed inn with that same great-aunt, along with a witch trapped in fox form, a resurrected rooster skeleton and a gaggle of guests with plenty of their own quirks. Until one new guest offers her a second chance. Luke Larsen is a Guild scholar who might know a spell to restore Sera's magic — but he's reluctant to help anyone targeted by the tyrannical Guild leader Albert Grey. Mandanna's earlier hit, 'The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches,' brushed up against a sinister authority figure, but here that danger is magnified: Grey is a real threat to the garden of kindness Sera has spent her years tending. It is glorious, then, watching Sera and Luke figure out how to deliver the consequences his actions deserve — as if someone has stitched a huge, pillowy duvet out of justice and revenge. Love Is a War Song LOVE IS A WAR SONG (Berkley, 336 pp., paperback, $19) also starts with a heroine in metaphorical exile: Avery Fox is a rising Native American pop star who sparked outrage when she posed in a warbonnet on the cover of Rolling Stone. To ride out the backlash, she takes refuge at her grandmother's ranch in Oklahoma. She's out of her depth with her relatives and on the reservation; the ranch manager, Lucas, seems to hold a particularly simmering grudge. (First Luke, now Lucas — it's a classic romance hero name, what can you do.) But doing professional choreography in five-inch heels has made Avery tougher than anyone expects; she makes some beginner mistakes, but soon she's fallen in love with the ranch and with the close-knit community she finds in Oklahoma. And, of course, with Lucas — whose grand plans to restore the ranch will take both their efforts to accomplish. This book feels as lived-in and appealing as your favorite pair of jeans: sexy in an understated way and uniquely American. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.