Noting about this book was really bad.
It is just unoriginal all the way.
This book is a crossover between a cozy mystery without a murder and a typical YA novel except the MC is 23.
Even tho the author put obvious effort into making some of the characters appear more layered it doesn't come across this way. They still seem like a cardboard cutouts but labeled "20% deeper!".

I think a big problem with this novel for me is the endless flavours of this story I've already read over the years. It's just yet another instanciation of the same old clichées.
It's not doing anything particularly good. It doesn't have any interesting and unique twist. There is just nothing to make it stand out from the UF soup.

The plot was so predictable and onedimensional calling it a plot is already generous.

The magic basically only acts as plot device. And it's used a LOT for that purpose. I don't think I want to read a book by this author without the magic to steer everything.
Despite that I never perceived it as particularly annoying. While it's not particularly subtle, it's always low-key enough to not stand out uncompfortably.

It has successfully taken up 7 hours of my time which was what it was supposed to do but it just wasn't interesting enough for me to continue with the second book. ( )

Legacy of Magick by Ellen Dugan is the first book in a series that follows Autumn Bishop, a young women that moves back home to attend graduate school near her father’s family, family she hasn’t seen since childhood. Autumn quickly learns of her family’s magickal legacy and exactly where she fits into that legacy. Woven next to that storyline is Autumn’s chance meeting with a romantic stranger who just happens to be on the other side of a family feud. This feud develops and darkens as Autumn learns about her family history, culminating in a dangerous and dramatic collision of the feuding families.

The Lovely: The author excels at illustrating the characters and how they develop. I can picture Autumn and her cousins in particular.

The Mundane: There was an even pace to the book as events kept happening just fast enough to hold interest.

The Dreadful: The romance is predictable and it is just one cliché after another. They literally run into each other while out jogging. It became a bingo game of romance book clichés and sadly went on like this for the first 2/3 of the book. The main character is 24 years old but feels younger most of the book based on how she thinks and acts.

Rating: 3/5 Stars

Recommendation: This is a cute quick read (or in my case, an audiobook) that weaves together a romance, witchcraft and, later in the book, some mystery and tension. That said, it does read more like a YA book and I just didn’t connect to the characters. Perhaps most telling of all, I didn’t run out and plow through the sequel immediately, which is what usually happens in a series. That said, I did listen to the second book and a lot of issues were improved. ( )