Review--The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling

 

New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hawkins, writing as Erin Sterling, casts a spell with a spine-tingling romance full of wishes, witches, and hexes gone wrong.

Nine years ago, Vivienne Jones nursed her broken heart like any young witch would: vodka, weepy music, bubble baths…and a curse on the horrible boyfriend. Sure, Vivi knows she shouldn’t use her magic this way, but with only an “orchard hayride” scented candle on hand, she isn’t worried it will cause him anything more than a bad hair day or two.

That is until Rhys Penhallow, descendent of the town’s ancestors, breaker of hearts, and annoyingly just as gorgeous as he always was, returns to Graves Glen, Georgia. What should be a quick trip to recharge the town’s ley lines and make an appearance at the annual fall festival turns disastrously wrong. With one calamity after another striking Rhys, Vivi realizes her silly little Ex Hex may not have been so harmless after all.

Suddenly, Graves Glen is under attack from murderous wind-up toys, a pissed off ghost, and a talking cat with some interesting things to say. Vivi and Rhys have to ignore their off the charts chemistry to work together to save the town and find a way to break the break-up curse before it’s too late.

 

Erin Sterling's The Ex Hex was positively one of the cutest paranormal rom-com's I've ever read! And you know me, I don't usually go for the cute and fuzzy reads, but it involved witches and hexes, so it had its appeal! It was q rather quick read, but delightful all the same!

Vivi had her heartbroken at nineteen when her boyfriend, Rhys told her he had to go back home and deal with his betrothed...just after an intimate moment! After banishing him from her life, she inadvertently and unknowingly cursed him. Flash forward nine years later and Rhys finds himself being sent back to Graves Glen, where he met and fell in love with Vivi and left her after a terrible breakup. His family is the founder of the town and every year at Halloween a family member returns to charge the ley lines and because Fate, and his father, are cruel, Rhys is sent to do the task this year.

Upon entering the town, Rhys finds himself the victim of pure and utter bad luck. Everything seems to be going wrong for him. Then he bumps into Vivi and things heat up more or less. There is still a heated attraction between the two, but for Vivi there's still a lot of resentment too. Rhys himself still feels a bit jaded after the way Vivi treated him after their intimate moment. He did not get a chance to explain what he meant when he brought up returning home to Wales to see to his betrothed. 

Honestly, this bit right here still gets me. What did happen?! Is Sterling saving this for a future book? Because I was left reeling after this revelation and that as the pages went by, there was still never any further mention of what happened to his betrothed. Was the agreement broken? Did he break it, did she? Did she move on? Was she a totally b with an itch and deserve the dumping? What, what what?!! Yeah, lots of questions, but alas...we never even get a name. I know it's not detrimental to the story at large, but since it had a pretty big impact on the characters in the very beginning...I was kind of expecting some sort of followup. Even if it was just to say, Rhys ended the betrothal despite his father's wishes...or just something like that!

Anyways, Vivi wanting to see the ley lines ask if she could come with Rhys when he charges them and since they still have heated chemistry burning between them, he agrees. But when he goes to charge the lines something goes terribly wrong. The curse, that's running through his veins now that he's returned to Graves Glen, goes into the charge and now the ley lines are running rampant with his curse and causing all sorts of havoc in town. Now Rhys and Vivi will have to figure out a way to break the curse and set things to right in the town before things go really crazy. 

This book was buckets of fun! It was such a sweet little read of rekindled romance, but with a nice paranormal twist! And omg, if my 2009 self saw me gushing over a romance book she would've laughed her butt off at that possibility! Lol. What has happened to me?! Lol. I'm a sucker for reconnections. Vivi and Rhys definitely had that, as they met after Vivi's first year in college and spent one incredible summer together before all went to crap.

Since the sequel is out, I know it stars Vivi's cousin, Gwyn, and one of Rhys' brothers and this ought to make for more fun as Gwyn is definitely one who doesn't hold anything back. It was her urging Vivi as teenagers to curse Rhys (in a joking manner). She's going to be a riot in her book! She was very much one in this book as well! She always had Vivi's back and she constantly gave Rhys crap for the way he treated Vivi in the past. Rhys had that kind of rich playboy attitude to him, but since we get his perspective too, we learn he's deeper than his initial appearance. Then there's Vivi who is pretty much a good hearted, kind soul but with a little bit of bite to her. She's definitely not a pushover.

There wasn't a whole lot of other conflicts to this book to keep characters apart. I guess I sometimes expected the mysterious betrothed to come to town and there be some kind of showdown. Just who is this mystery woman?! But I guess I got to let that go, as it doesn't appear to be a problem anymore, but I even wonder why Vivi never questioned it. Like why she didn't ask him how married life was treating him or something. Just something to say that he didn't go through with it, which he did allude to needing to go back home to break it off or something like that. Mysteries we will never know I guess. Unless one of his brothers falls for the betrothed. Who knows? There's only one other book out right now!

Since this is a romance of sorts, you can pretty much guess the ending. Things are perfectly perfect by the last page and all is well. We already know what to expect in the next book based on its description and there's definitely one more to come, but what that one will entail is a mystery at this point. Perhaps the betrothed and brother number 3? If you're looking for a cute and delightful paranormal romance read, I would recommend The Ex Hex! It was light and fluffly and just the kind of read to mix up my darker paranormals!

 

 

Overall Rating 4/5 stars