Samhain Publishing, $3.50, ISBN 978-1-60504-397-5
Fantasy Romance, 2009
Witches Anonymous resembles a romantic urban fantasy story of today in its narrative format. Think first person narration from the heroine’s point of view. Not that I have an issue with this, but I do know some people out there prefer third person point of view in their stories, so this is a PSA for those folks out there.
Amy Atwood is a witch. No, she’s not some ingenue Wiccan sweetheart running around casting love spells on wounded does and injured birds. Think Fairuza Balk’s Nancy Downs character in The Curse: Amy was the real deal. She worshiped the Devil and she does bad things… at least until she caught Satan hexing it up (yes, you read that right) with her supposedly goody-goody Wiccan sister and the whole love affair was like, you know, so over and all. Amy is now determined to stop using magic altogether, hence her attending Witches Anonymous – the sole dark witch in a group of suspicious Wiccans – and wondering whether death by chocolate gluttony is a better alternative to the animosity she is experiencing at those meetings.
Fortunately for Amy’s waistline, Adam Foster attends the Harley Brothers meeting just down the hall and he is just the perfect reason to keep behaving… or is he? It is hard enough pretending to be human for Adam’s sake, but when the Devil wants her back, poor Amy is going to have her hands full trying to keep her social calendar from exploding in her face.
I have a pretty good time reading this story. There is humor, there is a charming romance, and there are plenty of twists and turns to keep the story interesting. The pacing is fine as well. I would have really liked this story, were not for one thing. Amy should know that breaking off with Lucifer isn’t going to be as easy as that, right? Or is she really that naïve? The fact that after she knows that Luc is not going to take rejection easily and she still doesn’t cast protective charms around her place because she’s determined to stop using magic isn’t admirable to me, it’s dumb. Very dumb, actually, so it is a good thing that Luc didn’t pull an Evil Dead on her. Therefore, this one is a story that would have been fine were not for that one aspect of the plot that has me seriously doubting the intelligence of the heroine. Sometimes one single “What on earth?” moment is all it takes to bog down a story, and in a short story such as this one, this is indeed the unfortunate case.
PS: Only wimps will settle for Sam Winchester. A real woman would insist that both young men get naked with her. At the same time.
