The Kiss Curse

A breezy new read for Spooky Season from the author of The Ex Hex? Yes, please! Erin Sterling delivers another bewitching romance set in the delightful fictional hamlet of Graves Glen, Georgia—a kind of southern Salem where tourists gobble up magic-themed kitsch and real witches keep their powers on the down low. Readers of The Ex Hex will enjoy the deeper dive into the town’s rearranged power structure (and updates on Ex’s love story), but first-time Sterling readers won’t miss a beat.

Gwyn Jones runs a beloved local shop, Something Wicked, selling magic-adjacent trinkets to the general public and unofficially mentors a handful of young witches from the local witch college, Penhaven. Then brooding, bearded Wells Penhallow—who Gwyn not-so-fondly remembers from their own days at Penhaven—sweeps into town and sets up a competing shop across the street. Sparks (and glitter) fly, family rivalries clash, and long-held grudges give way to flirtation and more. It’s a bit like You’ve Got Mail, if Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan were sexy witches who consummate their attraction in the bed of a pickup truck.

Reading The Kiss Curse will definitely have you in a magical mood. The sinister plots and sizzling chemistry make for an alchemical combination that once again produces gold.

Gwyn Jones is perfectly happy with her life in Graves Glen. She, her mom, and her cousin have formed a new and powerful coven; she’s running a successful witchcraft shop, Something Wicked; and she’s started mentoring some of the younger witches in town. As Halloween approaches, there’s only one problem—Llewellyn “Wells” Penhallow.

Wells has come to Graves Glen to re-establish his family’s connection to the town they founded as well as to make a new life for himself after years of being the dutiful son in Wales. When he opens up a shop of his own, Penhallow’s, just across the street from Something Wicked, he quickly learns he’s gotten more than he bargained for in going up against Gwyn.

When their professional competition leads to a very personal—and very hot—kiss, both Wells and Gwyn are determined to stay away from each other, convinced the kiss was just a magical fluke. But when a mysterious new coven of witches come to town and Gwyn’s powers begin fading, she and Wells must work together to figure out just what these new witches want and how to restore Gwyn’s magic before it’s too late.