Review copy was received from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Don't Hex and Drive by Juliette Cross Series: Stay a Spell #2
Published by Self-Published on September 8, 2020
Genres: Fantasy Romance
Pages: 346
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley
Goodreads
Amazon
Notoriously bad at peopling, Isadora Savoie spends most of her time in the greenhouse or at the local animal shelter, using her Conduit powers of growth and healing. Content to remain in the background of the Savoie sister shenanigans, she’s reluctantly roped into the mystery of missing neighborhood girls. Now, she’s partnered with a flashy, flirty vampire to find them before it’s too late.
Devraj Kumar has seen and done it all. Three hundred years roaming the earth as a Stygorn—a legendary vampire warrior who operates in the shadows—has its perks. But ennui has set in. That is, until he has a run-in—literally—with an intriguing witch while on a new assignment in New Orleans. Fascinated by her resistance to his charms, Devraj can’t help but push her buttons in an effort to get to know the shy witch. Fortunately for him, she’s been recruited by the Lord of Vampires to assist Devraj on the case.
Between a Bollywood marathon, supernatural dating app, secret package, and sexy driving instruction, Isadora is in over her head. And Devraj? After just one taste, he’s playing for keeps.
Don’t Hex and Drive is the second book in the Stay A Spell series centered on a witch family in the center of the New Orleans paranormal community. Each story is about a new family member and love interest. As such they standalone and can be read on their own, or in order in the series, without many spoilers.
Isadora is the shy and timid sister of the bunch. She does best with people she knows well and dogs but feels very uncomfortable as the center of attention. Her magic is of a healing nature and so spending time doing the books for the family businesses and growing things in the greenhouse is what she sticks to doing. But the new Vampire in town is about to push her out of all of her comfort zones, well actually knock her out is more appropriate since he is about to literally run into her.
On the outside, Devraj seems like he is the life of any party and that he likes to be in the lime light. But the truth is that he misses being truly close to anyone. He has been alive a long time and really longs for a feeling of being at home again. But Isadora, the girl who intrigues him more than anyone only sees the outward appearance; she is about to get a shock when she learns he has some inner depths to him and that he is a patient hunter who has her in his sights now.
This is a cute love story. Isadora and Devraj both didn’t expect to be thrown together but as the spend time together trying to find what has happened to a number of girls that have gone missing it is clear they have something strong together. Isadora can hold her own against the Vamp and he loves to see how much he can make her blush and how many boundaries he can push.
The only thing that is a little bit of a hang up for me was the Vampires. I don’t remember from the first book if it was discussed but Vampires in this world can still eat human food and are not harmed by the sun. So that took me a minute to process but overall, it isn’t a big deal and I had too much fun in the book with the romance and very steamy sex scenes to really care. When Isadora lets her hair down, she proves it’s the quiet ones that sometimes are the most passionate.
I enjoyed both books of this series so far and look forward to more of the sisters finding connections. I’m also really interested in the Grims and what their purpose is in the supernatural world. Each new story opens up the world a little more and I’m interested to see a few of the possible connections that could be stories soon.
About Juliette Cross
Juliette lives in lush, moss-laden Louisiana where she lives with her husband, four kids, and black lab, Kona.
Multi-published author of paranormal and urban fantasy romance, she loves reading and writing brooding characters, mysterious settings, persevering heroines, and dark, sexy heroes.
From the moment she read JANE EYRE as a teenager, she fell in love with the Gothic romance. Even then, she not only longed to read more novels set in Gothic worlds, she wanted to create her own.
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This sounds like fun and Isadora sounds like an interesting character. Yea, what’s the point of being a vampire if you can eat human food and go out in the sun? lol Great review!
Well they don’t sparkle so I’m totally okay with it. I just did a double take when he was walking around town for brunch.
This is a gorgeous cover. I’m off vampires but it sounds like a good story.
Right…I’m so done with Vampires. So I liked that the lore around them was different and it was more of a witch love story.
This was a cute and fun read. I like it and I love this cover. Great review!
Thanks Angela. I usually have a pretty good time with her books and so far this might be my favorite, even more than the Dragon Hybrid Shifters *gasp*
I do love a good witchy story. Glad to hear these books work as standalones.