For Love or Magic

Chick lit meets magic in March’s satisfying third trip (after That Touch of Magic) to rural Nodaway Falls, N.Y., a small town filled with oddball characters, down-home hospitality, and paranormal power. Eliot Parker’s debt-riddled con artist husband and his mistress du jour took a fatal drive into the icy waters of the Taunton River, leaving Eliot to inherit a rundown pickup truck, an indifferent bull mastiff named Seamus, and a house in Nodaway Falls, a town she’s never even heard of. But after arriving at the drowsy little hamlet, Eliot, a powerful “magical” herself, senses that something supernatural is afoot—and it could lead to a deadly confrontation with a dangerous figure from her past. March expertly juggles the escalating magical conflict and Eliot’s developing romance with the mysterious Desmond Lamb, and her emotionally scarred heroine’s tentative steps toward forming real friendships with her new neighbors are genuine and sweet. While readers never quite get a clear sense of the magic and how it works, the characters’ relatability and resilience of spirit will resonate. Agent: Stephanie Kip Rostan, Levine Greenberg Literary. (Dec.)