#Review - Bewitched by Darynda Jones #Fantasy #Paranormal

Series: Betwixt & Between # 2
Format: Kindle, 274 pages
Release Date: September 28, 2020
Publisher: September 28, 2020
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Genre: Urban Fantasy

Forty-something Defiance Dayne only recently discovered she comes from a long line of powerful witches. Added to that was the teensy, infinitesimal fact that she is what’s called a charmling. One of three on the entire planet. And there are other witches who will stop at nothing to steal her immense power, which would basically involve her unfortunate and untimely death.

No one told her life after forty would mean having to learn new lifeskills—such as how to dodge supernatural assassins while casting from a moving vehicle—or that the sexiest man alive would be living in her basement.

Whoever said life begins at forty was clearly a master of the underappreciated and oft maligned understatement.

Bewitched is the second installment in author Darynda Jones's Betwixt & Between series. This story takes place 6 months after the ending of Betwixt. 45-year-old Defiance Dayne only recently discovered she comes from a long line of powerful witches called charmling. One of three on the entire planet, one born every other generation. And there are other witches and warlocks who will stop at nothing to steal her immense power. But the most amazing thing is that she spent 6 months in a coma like state after an event that happened during the previous installment.

Waking up in mid air, Defiance finds Percy, the house, is  covered in vines, and it appears as though Percy was protecting her. Defiance is still having difficulty coming to terms with her destiny as a super witch and thinks she can change her fate by pretending to have lost her powers. Everyone around her goes along with her ploy while trying to get her to accept her new reality. Meanwhile, dark forces are invading her dreams, forces which have Defiance wanting to run as far and as fast as she can, but fate has other ideas. 

Defiance is living in the home her grandmother Ruthie Goode left for her. She has her best friend Annette, who I think as the humorous sidekick, as well as Roane Wildes who is not only a shape shifter but the love interest as well, but her own personal security detail. Her two dads are still around because she spent 6 months in a coma like state. Her house is actually named after her grandfather Percy Goode who wasn't a good man when he was alive. Lastly, there is the cat called Ink who is always good for a laugh or two, as well as someone who was previously dead.

Curiously, the author via Defiance hints about some big evil that should be coming based upon what she witnessed in her coma at the beginning of the book. She also hints at Defiance past exploits which has huge implications for why so many people want to take what she has from her. There is also the fact that she is constantly being threatened to move, or people are coming up to her and demanding that she find something they may have lost. She also leaves the story on a stunning cliffhanger ending. Good thing I have book # 3!

But let's get real for a moment. My rating is based on the fact that Defiance is a grown woman of 45 and she acts like a teen whenever she and Annette are together. Maybe it's the attempted humor, maybe it's all the giggling, or maybe it's the fact that Defiance actually has issues with her powers and therefore pretty much walks into a dangerous situation blindly. One can definitely NOT call Defiance a Mary Sue because it takes her almost the entire story to realize that maybe her powers can be used for good. 

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