Laura J’s review of Casual Hex (The Hex Series, Book 3) by Vicki Lewis Thompson
Contemporary Paranormal Romantic Comedy released by Onyx Publishing 3 Mar 09
When I first started reading again, a friend recommended most of the books I picked up. She knew I liked romantic comedies, but for some reason she never told me about Ms. Lewis-Thompson’s nerd books. Nope, I discovered those all on my own. Wandering around the book section at Wally World I saw Nerds Gone Wild, picked it up, read the back cover blurb and threw it in my cart. I started reading it a couple of days later and loved her quirky sense of humor.
I started grabbing any book of hers I could and finally got caught up on the Nerd Series. She became an automatic buy for me and I was really excited when I learned that she would start a new series set in a fictional town in my home state of Indiana. The first book in the series is Over Hexed which was released in 2007, followed a year later by Wild & Hexy. Casual Hex is the third book in this very fun series and I’m really hoping that we will get a few more in this series (even though it looks like she is starting a new series).
Dorcas and Ambrose, are a matchmaking witch and wizard who have been sent to Big Knob, Indiana as punishment for a spell gone wrong. After helping to match two other couples (Sean and Maggie from Over Hexed and Jeremy and Annie from Wild & Hexy) they decide to help shy, plain Jane and somewhat under confident Gwen Dubois find her true love, while they continue to help George the dragon get his golden scales so they can return to their real home in Sedona.
Gwen is the owner of a flower shop in Big Knob and after a “discovery” of a plant by Dorcas and Ambrose she contacts French botanist Jean “Marc” Chevalier. After conversing through emails for several weeks Marc decides to meet Gwen in person and check out this plant. He was going to a conference in Chicago and Big Knob was only a few hours drive from there. They seemed to have hit it off on line and both were hoping that once they met in person the attraction would be the same or even better.
The problem is, unknown to Dorcas and Ambrose, Queen Beryl, Fairy Queen, has ordered her son Prince Leo to Big Knob to show he can be something other than a rich, spoiled, playboy. Prince Leo must help Gwen build up her confidence and help her feel more sexy. If Leo can accomplish this then he will become the ruler of the fairies. He is able to do this (of course after putting the “job” off for a couple of months while he has his fun) by entering into Gwen’s dreams and becoming what he thinks her fantasy man is. He makes love to her in her dreams and while it’s real to him, Gwen awakes thinking she only had a very vivid dream. It freaks her out when her “fantasy” shows up in Big Knob and complicates things a bit with Marc.
I have fallen in love with all the characters of this series, so I won’t go much in to the secondary characters other than saying that Ambrose and Dorcas still continue to be a couple of my very favorite secondary characters. Marc is a fantastic hero and like many of Ms. Lewis Thompson’s heroes he’s both nerdy and sexy and it works. He falls somewhere between an Alpha and Beta hero. His flaw is he is a bit overprotective of his sister trying to push her in a direction he thinks best, which Gwen helps him to recognize and fix. Gwen is a bit of a nerd herself and lacks confidence in herself. She doesn’t believe in anything that is not black and white.
A secondary hero is the fairy prince Leo. While Leo may help Gwen with her confidence a little she sure does a number on his, but Leo needs this as he is a bit full of himself.
While I’m really hoping for more Hex books, it seems as if this may be the last one. Ms. Lewis Thompson has a new series coming in February 2010, Blonde With a Wand (and a second one in March 2010, Chick With a Charm -YAY! for not having to wait too long between books) that will have Dorcas and Ambrose helping others find their true loves. This wasn’t my favorite of the three (that goes to Over Hexed), but I still really enjoyed it.
Grade: B
Summary:
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Gwen Dubois lives in Indiana, but her heart is in France with Marc Chevalier. Now he’s come to Big Knob to show Gwen the real meaning of amour and coax her back to Paris. But stiff competition is coming from another part of the world, if not exactly this world. Prince Leo of the Atwood fairy kingdom has his own plans for Gwen.
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As Marc and Leo battle for Gwen’s affections, Big Knob’s resident matchmaking witch and wizard move in to help true love triumph in the best way they know how: with a little magic. But when the rivalry puts Gwen in danger, the men in her life are asked to prove their love in ways no one could have imagined.
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Read an excerpt.
Other books in this series:
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