Lily Harper Hart

This one is mediocre for the most part.
The biggest sins are a lot of different plot conveniences and the typical mid-battle tactical timeout to have a conversation absurdity.
The family dynamic around the MC actually is quite well done.
It feels real and I can understand the motivations from different perspectives which sadly is quite rare.
But the rest is just not good enough. It's actually quite weird how this select part can feel so well done while the other characters are very shallow.
This show more is my third book by this author and I have yet to give more than 2 stars but this one came the closest.
I will probably avoid her for now but I will probably stumble over something new and interesting by her eventually. show less

The mc acts like a total jerk in the beginning and can't handle the echo but the author believes it's as much the victim's fault somehow as it is hers.
That irritated me. A lot. If you are a jerk you are not entitled to polite responses regardless of your gender. That's what equality means.

There were multiple incredibly awkward apologetical conversations reminiscent of grade school teachers forcing children to apologize to each other but then they suddenly can not stop apologizing. I show more understand that it is meant humorously but it misses the tone and is grossly overdone and frankly just cringeworthy, not funny.
This seems to be a general theme, cringeworthy and extremely stilted heart to heart conversations. I will never understand what people get out of these because they are everywhere. Do other people really have conversations like that? Maybe I am just weird.

The characters are just not well-written in general.
Some less important characters suffer 180° personality-switches out of nowhere and no one thought it weird or remarked about it for example.

I usually like this kind of nature witch theme and bantery dialogue, and this spark of attraction but the bad character work and sometimes poor dialogue, as well as awfully overplayed stereotypes, just spoiled it for me.
dnf around 50% show less

Gut wrenching tension

I came for the magic and romance,but the mystery kept me reading faster. Any is a great new character,complex and not AS annoying as I expected. I hope she loses the giggle,though, I never like any character who giggles past infancy.

One of the things I like best about this series is the huge variety of the ghosts Maddie encounters. This thoroughly unlikable purvy Santa is just another. It looks like he may be hanging around, and I wouldn't mind his popping up occasionally as walk-on character.
I'd also like to see more of Marla, although while she's enjoyable as a nemesis, she's remained undeveloped for far too long. Cassidy is far more complex, if less amusing.
I'm put off by Maddie being a "professional psychic" who show more never seems to keep her store open, nor hang around her tent at festivals. It seems to me that that would frustrate the heck out of her clientele. show less