Don’t Hex and Drive by Juliette Cross: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

Don't Hex and Drive by Juliette Cross

Don’t Hex and Drive is the second book in Stay a Spell series by Juliette Cross, and I received an early copy from NetGalley for reviewing. The series follows six sisters in New Orleans who are all witches with their special skills. The world also has vampires, werewolves and mysterious grimms, all living in secret from most of the humanity; though how that’s possible in the modern world of social media, I’m not sure.

I read the first two books back to back. Wolf Gone Wild is a nice paranormal romance, but not a very good book, as it has practically no plot and is filled with empty scenes that serve the romance but aren’t terribly exciting. Mateo is unable to shift into a wolf and suspects he’s been hexed and asks Evie to break the curse. But no one even investigates who’s cursed him and why. As a result, it’s the villain who gets to set the pace. The baddie shows up out of the blue in the last chapter and the entire story is acted out there. But I gave it three stars because I liked Evie and Mateo.

Wolf Gone Wild by Juliette Cross

In comparison, Don’t Hex and Drive is a much better and more interesting book. It has a proper plot that not only drives the actions of the characters but influences the romance as well. The book doesn’t seem like it’s been filled with empty scenes that only serve to inflate the word count. The mystery of women being kidnapped by vampires isn’t terribly mysterious and is solved easily in the end, but since this is a romance anyway, it doesn’t matter all that much. And the character motivations that drive the couple apart stem from their lives and are believable.

Isadora is a nice person, a witch with a great ability to heal and a tendency to keep herself in the background. But like with Evie in the first book, I had really hard time remembering that she’s in her late thirties and not early twenties. Devraj is a vampire tracker and a Bollywood star, an odd combination for someone who not only needs to keep his vampire side a secret, but has to go on missions that might take months. How the stardom came to be isn’t mentioned. He’s very charming, but I didn’t like him at all at first. He comes across as a bully who wants to push himself into Isadora’s life against her wishes. He turns better though, and I was able to enjoy their romance. And I think he redeemed himself in the end. There’s more sex in this book than the first one, but the scenes are well written and they fit the story well. And I’m really starting to like the Savoie sisters and will happily follow their stories.