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walkitoutThere are three books and one novella: Slouch Witch, Star Witch, Spirit Witch and Sparkle Witch. This urban romantasy trilogy+ from 2017 has been picking up recs lately, which is how I stumbled across it (SBTB is where I ran across mentions).
There are a lot of the normal aspects of urban fantasy: young woman, out on her own, struggling, but with significant Powers that she encourages people to underestimate. It’s a little weird in that as near as I can tell, we never hear anything about her family of origin, and only late in the series do we get even the tiniest glimpse into her pre-Order life. Generally, trauma background associated with family of origin is the norm in urban fantasy so I was kind of expecting that but it never happened.
While the tone is light hearted, and our heroine has stable friendships with Eve and Iqbal, Ivy is so relentlessly pragmatic that the reader is left with a lot of questions. Her friend Eve
HEY SPOILERS!
has to go away on Order business, and Ivy is looking after her apartment and familiar. Two other Order witches break in, and Ivy defeats them in combat and — I really cannot emphasize enough how shocking this is — leaves them tied up on the floor of Ivy’s apartment for three days, giving them food, water, and letting them use the loo only once or twice per day.
That is NOT OK.
It did not, however, stop me reading the series, and I’m not sure anyone else even clocked how appalling this behavior really is. I mean, I get that she didn’t know who to trust, her options were limited and the possibilities were dire. And also.
Anyway. Ivy obviously does have a lot of trauma, and some of it has to do with the Order having done her dirty. Her ex-boyfriend pushed his cheating onto her and she got kicked out, and things don’t really improve over the course of the series. By Book Two, the head of the Order is asking her to save everyone from the necromancer by using a spell almost certain to kill her (it doesn’t).
But they are fun books (see light hearted tone above). Ivy has a system — drive the taxi enough to pay her bills and no more, and then spend the rest of the time on the couch curled up in a duvet, while continuously honing her magical skills to make her life easier for her. A really pragmatic and excellent strategy. By the time Raphael Winter from the Order tears through her life, she’s more than able to keep up with him, using those magical skills to compensate for the inevitable effects of that much time spent sitting and lying down.
In Book 1, they hunt for missing items.
In Book 2, they hunt for a necromancer, while Ivy participates in her favorite reality TV show, Enchantment, starting as a runner and winding up as a contestant.
In Book 3, Ivy can now see Dead People (see: survived sucking the magic out of a necromancer), and the Dead People want to be released from curses. Tens of thousands of Dead People. But first, Rafe and Ivy have to figure out who is killing witches and how.
In Book 4, Rafe sends Ivy out to be an elf (or Santa) for the Order, but she has to abandon that for the more important task of finding the Angel that’s gone missing from the Order’s Christmas Tree.
Throughout, Ivy’s ex, Tarquin, keeps turning up like a bad penny (what does that mean, anyway). The head dude of the Order keeps getting personally involved in … everything. Ivy keeps having to fix … everything. Everyone could use a helluva lot of therapy, but it’s all mostly good-natured and entertaining, altho probably especially the scene where Ivy and Rafe go to have dinner with Rafe’s parents.
Throughout the series, Ivy and her friend Iqbal are wildly capable and intelligent, but also continuously disorganized, indecisive, late and making excuses for themselves and others. Yes, pretty clear cut description of adult, undiagnosed or at any rate untreated ADD. Ivy’s friend Eve, and love interest Rafe are compliant, hardworking, intelligent but not as intelligent or as capable as Ivy and Iqbal. Eve and Rafe are orderly and fit. If you are looking for humorous depictions of neurodiversity in romantasy, these are plausible choices.
I’m on the fence about whether I’d recommend them. There are definitely issues. But I’m pretty sure that if you’ve read this far, you have a good sense of at least some of them.
There are a lot of the normal aspects of urban fantasy: young woman, out on her own, struggling, but with significant Powers that she encourages people to underestimate. It’s a little weird in that as near as I can tell, we never hear anything about her family of origin, and only late in the series do we get even the tiniest glimpse into her pre-Order life. Generally, trauma background associated with family of origin is the norm in urban fantasy so I was kind of expecting that but it never happened.
While the tone is light hearted, and our heroine has stable friendships with Eve and Iqbal, Ivy is so relentlessly pragmatic that the reader is left with a lot of questions. Her friend Eve
HEY SPOILERS!
has to go away on Order business, and Ivy is looking after her apartment and familiar. Two other Order witches break in, and Ivy defeats them in combat and — I really cannot emphasize enough how shocking this is — leaves them tied up on the floor of Ivy’s apartment for three days, giving them food, water, and letting them use the loo only once or twice per day.
That is NOT OK.
It did not, however, stop me reading the series, and I’m not sure anyone else even clocked how appalling this behavior really is. I mean, I get that she didn’t know who to trust, her options were limited and the possibilities were dire. And also.
Anyway. Ivy obviously does have a lot of trauma, and some of it has to do with the Order having done her dirty. Her ex-boyfriend pushed his cheating onto her and she got kicked out, and things don’t really improve over the course of the series. By Book Two, the head of the Order is asking her to save everyone from the necromancer by using a spell almost certain to kill her (it doesn’t).
But they are fun books (see light hearted tone above). Ivy has a system — drive the taxi enough to pay her bills and no more, and then spend the rest of the time on the couch curled up in a duvet, while continuously honing her magical skills to make her life easier for her. A really pragmatic and excellent strategy. By the time Raphael Winter from the Order tears through her life, she’s more than able to keep up with him, using those magical skills to compensate for the inevitable effects of that much time spent sitting and lying down.
In Book 1, they hunt for missing items.
In Book 2, they hunt for a necromancer, while Ivy participates in her favorite reality TV show, Enchantment, starting as a runner and winding up as a contestant.
In Book 3, Ivy can now see Dead People (see: survived sucking the magic out of a necromancer), and the Dead People want to be released from curses. Tens of thousands of Dead People. But first, Rafe and Ivy have to figure out who is killing witches and how.
In Book 4, Rafe sends Ivy out to be an elf (or Santa) for the Order, but she has to abandon that for the more important task of finding the Angel that’s gone missing from the Order’s Christmas Tree.
Throughout, Ivy’s ex, Tarquin, keeps turning up like a bad penny (what does that mean, anyway). The head dude of the Order keeps getting personally involved in … everything. Ivy keeps having to fix … everything. Everyone could use a helluva lot of therapy, but it’s all mostly good-natured and entertaining, altho probably especially the scene where Ivy and Rafe go to have dinner with Rafe’s parents.
Throughout the series, Ivy and her friend Iqbal are wildly capable and intelligent, but also continuously disorganized, indecisive, late and making excuses for themselves and others. Yes, pretty clear cut description of adult, undiagnosed or at any rate untreated ADD. Ivy’s friend Eve, and love interest Rafe are compliant, hardworking, intelligent but not as intelligent or as capable as Ivy and Iqbal. Eve and Rafe are orderly and fit. If you are looking for humorous depictions of neurodiversity in romantasy, these are plausible choices.
I’m on the fence about whether I’d recommend them. There are definitely issues. But I’m pretty sure that if you’ve read this far, you have a good sense of at least some of them.