Book review: Crystal Cove by Lisa Kleypas

If you like your romance novels to have a little injection of the supernatural, the latest in Lisa Kleypas’s sexy, sparkling Friday Harbour books is sure to work some special magic.

The American author’s popular series has won thousands of readers with its charming, contemporary stories featuring a picturesque town where the friendly residents know everything about everyone and always look out for each other.

It’s like meeting a group of exciting new friends and here she puts a provocative, paranormal spin on Friday Harbour’s everyday life with the tale of a young woman who is struggling to break a spell cast on her by her ‘white witch’ mother.

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After a nomadic childhood with her restless mother Marigold, Justine Hoffman has made a safe and comfortable life for herself on the island of Friday Harbour but there is still something missing from her life.

She has caring friends and owns Artist’s Point, a thriving bed and breakfast business, but love – that emotion which is both ‘extraordinary, and yet entirely normal’ – still eludes her.

It’s all because her disillusioned mother, a hereditary witch, cast a spell on her, making it almost impossible for Justine to ever find her soul mate.

But now, after years of wishing on stars, throwing coins into fountains and blowing dandelion seeds on their feathered parachutes, she is willing to do whatever it takes to change her destiny.

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Justine, raised in the pagan tradition, knows that she too has magical powers in her DNA so she casts a spell over herself to break her mother’s jinx.

But she could never have dreamt of the dangerous complications that follow. The elusive and mysterious Jason Black, a successful video game developer who scrupulously avoids the public spotlight, arrives at her B&B and when Justine meets Jason for the first time, the atmosphere is electric.

Jason unleashes a storm of desire and danger that threatens everything Justine holds dear because this handsome, soulless man has secrets of his own ... and he wants more from her than fate will ever allow.

Kleypas is a gifted storyteller, and in Crystal Cove she brings us a hint of the supernatural to add sparks and sparkle to a beguiling love story which packs in some complex relationships and passion-fuelled surprises.

Love with a deliciously dark twist...

(Piatkus, paperback, £7.99)

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