Wisteria Wonders by Angela Pepper [Review]

Wisteria Wonders (Wisteria Witches #3) by Angela Pepper
Format: ebook
Source: purchased
Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Date read: January 28, 2021

Wisteria Witches
1. Wisteria Witches
2. Wicked Wisteria
3. Wisteria Wonders - Paperback | Kindle
4. Watchful Wisteria
5. Wisteria Wyverns
6. Wolves of Wisteria
7. Wisteria Wrinkle
8. Wardens of Wisteria
9. Wisteria Warned
10. Wishful Wisteria
11. Wisteria Woven
12. Winter in Wisteria

Angela Pepper
| Website | Amazon |

Synopsis (Goodreads):

Zara Riddle is trying to find work-life-magic balance, but there's one big secret this witch needs to crack.

Chet Moore, the moody shifter who lives next door, has been running hot and cold like a broken faucet ever since they met. Zara finally resorts to magic to get the truth out of him. It turns out her instincts were right. Chet has been hiding something, and it's a doozy.

Now Chet wants Zara's help with an intensely personal mission. He wants her to track down a lost soul and solve a cold case – a strange and violent case that powerful entities would rather keep buried. Diving in will put them both in danger.

Zara tries to be a good witch. Zara should push aside her feelings and help the lost soul, but... it's so hard to do the right thing sometimes. Zara might be one crafty witch, but she's still a woman. Why should she stick her neck out to help people who lie to her?

On the plus side, Zara's got a new friend helping her. On the minus side, the friend is a gorgon.

When the shocking truth is finally unveiled, not everyone is going to get out alive. With this mission, the only thing worse than failing is succeeding.

Thoughts on Wisteria Wonders: I'm kind of having a hard time figuring out how I feel about this book. Mostly because the level of manipulation Zara uncovered was really gross. Like, REALLY gross. Beyond that, however, she kind of handwaved it when she found out and moved on and that freaks me out even more. While I can sort of wrap my head around why she'd be okay with the things that were done to maneuver her into coming to Wisteria, certain parties kept certain things a secret for WAY too long for me to be comfortable.

There were lies and a sometimes attraction that were cultivated and I'm just...not okay with that. At all.

Beyond Chet's part in it (because, yeah, I'm talking about Chet), Chessa's sisters could have stepped in at any time and told Zara the truth of what was going on. But they didn't. They really didn't even make an attempt to explain until things reached a boiling point. Why does she want to be friends with them after? Probably the only innocent party in all of it was Chessa, herself. And that whole situation was just weird once things were revealed.

So, again, the manipulation was gross, but Zara's acceptance of it weirded me out even more.

I'm going to go on record as saying I seem to have VERY strong feelings about being manipulated and lied to and this whole scenario has left me making a sour lemon face.

In the end, while certain mysteries and dangling threads from previous books were resolved (which was appreciated), the overall story here left me cold. I can accept that Zara helped out a person in need even though it hurt her because she's a genuinely good person. I can't get over how forgiving she was. She literally risked her life on multiple occasions to help people who lied to her repeatedly. She trusted people who didn't deserve her trust and then she forgave them afterwards because the ends justify the means? Yeah. Not okay with that.