I was pleasantly surprised by Not the Witch You Wed. This fake engagement romance is what I thought we were getting with that big crop of paranormal rom-coms that includes The Ex Hex, Payback's a Witch, and all the others. It's funny, sexy and generally a good time. It doesn't take itself too seriously and while there are internal and external obstacles in the protagonists' personal and romantic arcs, it's not a heavy book.
Violet is the oldest of a set of triplet witches and the only one without magic. Her inheritance, the role of Prima of the witches, has instead been passed to the middle triplet, Rose (MC of book 2). Until she gets reacquainted with wolf alpha Lincoln--and her magic--and an irrestible second-chance romance--activates.
Not the Witch You Wed suffers a little from its First in Series status, with quite a bit of focus on building out the world and cast of characters, but I'm currently reading the second (Not Your Ex's Hexes), which benefits from that setup and jumps right in.
I liked the build-out of politics of Asher's supernatural world and the friend/family groups her main characters move in. I really liked the two of them together. And mostly? Mostly I liked that it was what I expected. Sometimes there's a lot of fun to be had with a book that doesn't blow you away, but delivers exactly what you want at that moment. This is a solid read.
Audio Notes: This is third-person past tense with dual POV. The chapters don't alternate between the characters. Instead, Linc's POV is sandwiched into the chapters. It flows better than I'm making it sound, I promise. Dual POV is often less fun with a single narrator, but because of the way Asher structured the book and how Zura Johnson voices the characters, I didn't miss the second narrator. I found Johnson's narration to be a good fit for the humor of the story, never making it twee or flat. If you like audio, this is a good choice.
***
Content Note: Asher makes some word choices I didn't love, like gender essentialist language. I don't recall specific content warnings, which isn't to say that they don't exist... just that it's been 10 months since I read this book. I'm working on it!
I received a copy of this audiobook from the publisher via NetGalley.
