Rating:  4.5 ⭐️

My must read/auto buy list is growing. Put Helen Harper on there right now.  Every series I read from her just makes me appreciate her writing more .

Here’s another. And it’s due to the awesome main female character. 

That is 27 year old Ivy Wilde, someone outside the normal FMC outline in every conceivable way, from her outlook on exercise ( just no, she loves her plumpish short figure), avoidance of healthy habits and binging her favorite series.  She’s got magic but uses it on her terms. 

I love it when someone writes a woman character who’s not a crowd pleaser, an extrovert or someone who’s just wildly gorgeous.  Nope here we get a witch determined to be that kind of girl whose goal is to be an underachiever. Stay on that couch, eat those Cheetos, chat with your cat, be a part time Taxi driver and do the minimum each day to get by. Woohoo. It’s actually all in the title. 

Slouch Witch (The Lazy Girl’s Guide To Magic Book 1) by Helen Harper. I so love her. 

Ivy’s life changes when she’s mistaken for her out of town roommate, and ends up magically bound to Adeptus Exemptus Raphael Winter. Winter works for Arcane Branch, an investigative service for the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. None of which holds any real value for Ivy who wishes Winter and them gone.

What follows is a marvelous story about two hugely opposite personalities forced to work together on an epic case until the bond wears off.  It’s a funny, magical, thoughtfully crafted mystery about people, power dynamics, and expectations. 

The humor is everything. There’s scenes where I reread them just before bedtime so I could giggle myself off to sleep. Cats! 

If you’ve consorted with cats, been owned by one, then be prepared to howl at the cats here, especially Ivy’s familiar Brutus. 

But the investigations, especially as they start to let Ivy reveal so much about herself and her own recent experiences, are what power this fantastic novel. 

It finishes with a solid ending to this investigation but an open question as to whether the partnership between Ivy and Winter will resume or be over. 

Luckily there more released books to devour and I’m immediately heading forward.   Highly recommending this fabulous female character and author. 

Don’t miss out on Ivy Wilde and her familiar, Brutus.  They are musts!

Cover by Yocla Designs. Close but a accurate representation would be nicer. She’s a fantastic character. Let’s put her on that cover. 

The Lazy Girl’s Guide To Magic:

Slouch Witch #1

Star Witch #2

Spirit Witch #3

Sparkle Witch #4

Buy link 

        Slouch Witch (The Lazy Girl’s Guide To Magic Book 1)

    

Blurb 

Hard Work Will Pay Off Later. Laziness Pays Off Now. 

Let’s get one thing straight – Ivy Wilde is not a heroine. In fact, she’s probably the last witch in the world who you’d call if you needed a magical helping hand. If it were down to Ivy, she’d spend all day every day on her sofa where she could watch TV, munch junk food and talk to her feline familiar to her heart’s content.

However, when a bureaucratic disaster ends up with Ivy as the victim of a case of mistaken identity, she’s yanked very unwillingly into Arcane Branch, the investigative department of the Hallowed Order of Magical Enlightenment. Her problems are quadrupled when a valuable object is stolen right from under the Order’s noses. 

It doesn’t exactly help that she’s been magically bound to Adeptus Exemptus Raphael Winter. He might have piercing sapphire eyes and a body which a cover model would be proud of but, as far as Ivy’s concerned, he’s a walking advertisement for the joyless perils of too much witch-work. 

And if he makes her go to the gym again, she’s definitely going to turn him into a frog.

• Publisher: (June 8, 2017)
• Publication date: June 8, 2017
• Language: English
• Print length: 290 pages