Review of A Modern Witch

 Title: A Modern Witch
Author: Debora Geary
Genre: Adult, Urban Fantasy,Contemporary
Age restriction? Nah, although it is an adult book with some few adult situations. Maybe PG13
Series: A Modern Witch #1
Pages: 430
Edition: Ebook
Published: Mar 13, 2011
Publisher: Fireweed Publishing

 RATING:

Fun light reading, but not much substance and kind of "meh".

DESCRIPTION:

 Goodreads - Can you live 28 years without discovering you're a witch?

Lauren is downtown Chicago's youngest elite realtor. She's also a witch. She must be - the fetching spell for Witches' Chat isn't supposed to make mistakes. So says the woman who coded the spell, at least.

The tall, dark, and handsome guy sent to assess her is a witch too (and no, that doesn't end the way you might think). What he finds in Lauren will change lives, mess with a perfectly good career, and require lots of ice cream therapy. (more)

REVIEW

Lauren, an upcoming real estate agent with a normal life, has lived all her life without knowing that she's a witch. Nell and her brother Jamie write some website code slash spell to find witches browsing the internet, but they don't count on it picking up someone like Lauren, who has no clue about her witchy powers. Now her powers need to be confirmed and Lauren finds herself having to confront this new reality.

My thoughts while reading the book:

While I quite enjoyed reading A Modern Witch, I also found myself frequently confused and it took me a really long while to get orientated. This is coming from a veteran of starting epic fantasy series at the second book, so it's actually quite a significant setback.

•  By the third chapter, still not involved in the characters or understanding the world. Most of these were trying to sell a house (yawn) or talking to some older witches about some pretty uninteresting and unexpository things via a chatroom interface. More yawn. 
• Also, omniscient third person seems like a very wrong choice for this novel - so much distance and confustion! Or was that a slip up?
• I like the shifting P.O.V. per chapter for characters. I think the previous POV omniscience was a slip up, which is egrarious in any case
• Nope, scratch that. It seems we're head-hopping. I hate that.
• Characters not really coming off as unique, though I like the premise of trolling for witches on the net through magic.
• Nicely written, the prose sings at places. Love that.
• Ugh, what's with the lack of conflict? We're at chapter six and still nothing!
• Well, it had its funny moments. Also, pretty sweet.

So, final verdict: I didn't dislike it, and it was a fun read although I doubt I'd read it again. I also probably won't be checking out the rest of the books in the series. I guess it was just too heavy on the chick-lit and too light on the paranormal, at the end of the day, despite being all about witches and witchy powers.  Quite the contradiction.

Maybe it's just not what I expected? However, it seems that there are plenty of people who love it, and the writing is pretty awesome, so a solid three butterflies.