Don't Stop Bewitching by Mandy M. Roth [Review]

Don't Stop Bewitching (Bewitchingly Ever After #1) by Mandy M. Roth
Format: ebook
Source: purchased
Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Date read: January 8, 2021

Bewitchingly Ever After
1. Don't Stop Bewitching - Paperback | Kindle
2. Everybody Wants to Rune the World
3. Do You Really Want to Haunt Me

Mandy M. Roth
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Synopsis (Goodreads):

Welcome to Hedgewitch Cove, Louisiana, where there's no such thing as normal.

Cat-shifter Curt Warrick doesn't want to take a road trip with five other guys but when his best friend leaves him no choice, he finds himself in a van, stuffed full of men, headed to Louisiana. It should come as no surprise when everything that could go wrong on the trip does. That's okay though, Curt is used to the weird and wacky, after all, he was born and raised in a town that is the epitome of it all. There is a bright side. The trip will give him a chance to expand his enterprise.

There is nothing Missi (Mississippi) Peugeot hates more than rich men who think they can throw money around to get what they want. Okay, that's a lie. She hates change. That's why she's happy to stay in her tiny hometown of Hedgewitch Cove, Louisiana. Protected by magic, the town has kept its quaint, cozy feel--that is until a flashy, yet fetching, stranger shows up in a van that screams "flower power," announcing he's looking to buy property and begin developing the town. Missi's grandmother always warned her that her words had consequences. When she speaks out of anger, the magic in her rises to the challenge, putting a curse on Curt. Not that the man needed any help in the cursed department, seeing as how he already has a spell of chaos cast over him. By who, they don't know.

Now Missi just has to keep Mr. Flashy alive long enough to get him back up north where he belongs before her words come back to haunt him. There is only one slight hiccup with her plan: every second she tries to keep mishap from befalling Curt leaves her one step closer to wanting him to stay.

Thoughts on Don't Stop Bewitching: I enjoyed the Everlasting series and wanted to see how some of those secondary characters are going to fall hard into love. But...this story felt heavy on the quips and banter and sort of light on the romance. Where Everlasting was quirky, Hedgewitch Cove is just bonkers. In the "let's throw everything PLUS the kitchen sink" type of way. And again, there was SO MUCH banter that I felt like it took away from Missi and Curt's story.

I'd even go so far as to say this was more a road trip book than a romance. All the hugging it out and singing in the van took up more page space than Missi and Curt getting to know one another. (Honestly, I wasn't even expecting a whole lot of that. Shifters tend to fall hard and fast in these type of books and I usually like that. I wanted more this time around, I guess.)

So. Curt and his buddies have a road trip planned down to Hedgewitch Cove. There's a curse, another curse, a whole lot of manly hugging, and we find out Captain Petey has a past. Oh, there's also Missi and her family, who don't like technology and have been part of Hedgewitch forever.

I have the next two books in this series, so I'm going to read them, but...I want more. This relationship felt about as deep as a puddle and it wasn't what I was looking for right now.