Obviously Sasha Laurens had me at the comparison to Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and The Craft. (And I'm over here wishing desperately for autumn to hurry up and arrive.) I'm not going to lie to you guys, there was a HUGE disappointed sigh from me knowing that I am not reading this during the autumn.



A Wicked Magic 
by Sasha Laurens

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina meets The Craft when modern witches must save teens stolen by an ancient demon in this YA fantasy-thriller debut.

Dan and Liss are witches. The Black Book granted them that power. Harnessing that power feels good, especially when everything in their lives makes them feel powerless.

During a spell gone wrong, Liss's boyfriend is snatched away by an evil entity and presumed dead. Dan and Liss's friendship dies that night, too. How can they practice magic after the darkness that they conjured?

Months later, Liss discovers that her boyfriend is alive, trapped underground in the grips of an ancient force. She must save him, and she needs Dan and the power of The Black Book to do so. Dan is quickly sucked back into Liss's orbit and pushes away her best friend, Alexa. But Alexa has some big secrets she's hiding and her own unique magical disaster to deal with.

When another teenager disappears, the girls know it's no coincidence. What greedy magic have they awakened? And what does it want with these teens it has stolen?

Set in the atmospheric wilds of California's northern coast, Sasha Laurens's thrilling debut novel is about the complications of friendship, how to take back power, and how to embrace the darkness that lives within us all. 


If you're look for a fast, wickedly captivating YA debut: look no further than A Wicked Magic! (Standard disclaimer: look for trigger warnings first. There's a lot.) The autumn vibes alone have had me bouncing around in excitement, waiting for spooky season to arrive full force. Although the novel itself wasn't exactly what I was expecting--and had some less than stellar moments--A Wicked Magic was well-written and enthralling from the get-go. 

In some of its brightest moments, this novel gave me a lot of similar feelings that Undead Girl Gang did! The entire experience, the rush of magic and the consequences of using it, kept reminding me of the atmosphere. The novels are, of course, drastically different, but there's a part of me that wants to add it to a list of recommendations for fans of the above mentioned! I feel like A Wicked Magic exists in the same shadows.  

But, back to the review.

This is one of those novels that has a lot of sharpened edges that we're constantly bumping into, but it's what makes it so compulsively readable. Which makes A Wicked Magic all the more entertaining and startling. A Wicked Magic holds tight to many topics, exploring them in a blunt and fantastical way that won't be for everybody. A great deal of this novel is spent dedicated to its heavy themes.

Ultimately, A Wicked Magic was enjoyable and gritty. If you're an avid reader of magical stories set within a cast of flawed characters, this is definitely the book for you. My only regret is that my first time reading it wasn't spent in the crisp, autumn breeze.