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Hex Education
by Maureen Kilmer
G.P. Putnam's Sons, $17.00, 336pp
Published: September 19, 2023

A long time ago, in a university there were three young and lonely women who found each other and bonded…over witchcraft.  With nothing more than belief and desire to be more in control of their destinies, these three women explored every bell, book and candle to find magic.  And they did.  But the night they decided to cast a spell that would give each of them their heart's desire - love, fame and power - was the night that changed their lives forever.  It was the night that their dorm burned down and another girl was severely injured.

Some twenty years later, Sarah is a successful high-end realtor with a loving husband and two children.  Alicia is a famous stage magician in talks to take her show to Vegas.  Katrina is a powerful CEO of her own company making medical tools.  They had drifted apart after the fire but are now brought together to attend a gala memorializing the tragedy.  Over the years, they all learned that they could do small magics; things to make their lives easier or improve their businesses.  But what they didn't expect is that coming back together again would cause the magic to become much more powerful.  They also didn't expect the magic to take away their control.  Sarah discovers that her refrigerator automatically stocks food.  Katrina is overwhelmed with sales orders, more than she can fill, and that her computer is automatically sorting and filing her emails.  Alicia is being plagued with stalkers and fans who are now threatening her partner and their daughter.

We discover that the injured girl, Nancy, ends up being Sarah's sister-in-law which never fails to enforce a strong guilt every time that Sarah sees the terrible burn scars.  And all three of the witches plus Nancy are being stalked by a tenacious podcaster who keeps claiming that she knows more about what happened that night and wants their cooperation and information to create a podcast. 

Our main POV is Sarah who is desperately trying to keep everything normal and magic-free; terrified that her secret will cause her husband to fall out of love and that their privileged life would implode.  Katrina is much more willing to use magic to deal with undesirables such as the podcaster and Alicia tends to just follow along.  But as the three women attempt to continue using small magics, the more the magic doesn't obey them.  When Sarah attempted to clean a clogged drain, she ended up flooding her basement.  Their collective guilt over Nancy's injuries makes them fearful of exposure; setting the three women against each other over how to manage the burgeoning possibility of the truth being set free.

This was a some-time amusing book.  There were some funny moments, many of them from Sarah's talking cat.  But I think the author couldn't quite figure out if she wanted to write a funny book or a mystery.  It didn't really succeed at either.  The plot was pretty shallow: will they or won't they be outed?  The other plot point about the true cause of the fire was handled casually and was relatively unimportant. The best part of the book were the characters.  They weren't terribly detailed but they were sufficiently characterized so that their motivations made sense at the climax.  It read too much like a light summer mystery; it really didn't have much substance but I can see how it could be an enjoyable quick read if you didn't expect more than it gave.   ~~ Catherine Book

For more titles by Maureen Kilmer click here

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