In this world, witches are always female, always orphaned at a very early age due to magic gone wrong, and kept apart from each other most of the time so nobody finds out they exist. Mika Moon was kind-of adopted by a senior witch named Primrose, but raised apart from everyone else by a rotating bunch of nannies who had their memory wiped after the job ended. As a single adult, she moves from place to place, not getting attached to anyone or being loved. However, her one indulgence is making YouTube videos as a "fake" witch.
Except one fellow (son of a witch) can see magic coming off of her, knows she's the real thing, and offers her a job.
Lillian Nowhere is a witch/anthropologist who's adopted three orphaned girls and sent them home to live with her housekeeper, librarian, groundskeeper and his husband. However, Lillian is almost never around and Lucie, Jamie, Ken and Ian have been raising the girls, who so far have been hidden by the whopping wards Lillian puts up yearly around her property. But as their magic gets more powerful, they need someone around to teach them, and Mika is recruited. This is seriously the same setup as Ballet Shoes, but with magic.
The household is sweet and lovely (even cranky Wednesday-esque Terracotta, who likes to threaten death to Mika) and embrace Mika, and her dog, and her magical koi pond. Except for Jamie, who's a surly sort and doesn't feel too comfortable having a stranger around. Of course they slowly hit it off romantically, though. But there's a deadline: Lillian's lawyer is coming to the house, no ifs, ands or buts, on December 26, and the girls NEED TO BE ABLE TO HIDE THE MAGIC by then. Um, somehow. Mika knows they won't be perfect at it, but she'll do her best.
Mostly the book is just kind of hanging around, doing magic, getting to know each other (the other two kids, Rosetta and Altamira, are total sweeties), and making a home and family together. This sounds like it'd be pretty dull, but I kept on being interested and it was all very sweet and pleasant. The obvious anvils of "what happens when Edward comes to the house" and "you KNOW Primrose is going to find out there's three girls being raised at once and immediately break that up" hang over the head until the end, but there's a further surprise twist thrown into the mix that makes things get a wee bit crazy. Another twist is nicely foreshadowed, I knew where it was likely to go, but enjoyed it anyway.
Overall, this was a very pleasing, sweet yet not dull book to read. I don't know if the author would do a sequel to this or not (could go either way), but I'd happily hang out in this world with these people again, as they figure out how and who they want to be. Four stars.
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