This is book one of the Cursed Descendants series and the main character is Stella Aldren, a witch whose magic is a bit erratic and short lasting, and has opened up her own magic shop called Broomstix, in Salem, Massachusetts, a place her family has a long history in. One of her ancestors was one of the witches killed in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. One of the other witches killed at that time, Bridget Bishop, placed a curse on Cotton Mather and any of his descendants who might seek power or a political position, because of his crusade against witches at the time. The Salem Coven that Stella is part of, and which takes part in her home above the magic shop, are part of the curse. One of their coven has to kill any descendant of Cotton Mather, or they will all face death themselves for failing to carry out this edict. When one of the coven sees an article about Ethan Mather and his connection to the Salem Witches Trails, stating that he is a direct descendant and standing for the position of governor, an emergency meeting of the coven is called. One of their number calls on the spirit of one of the witches of that time, for guidance on who should take on this important task.
Unfortunately for Stella, the flame points directly to her, but the spirit also had a few words to say which seemed to concern Stella about the actions she is now being pushed to do. About one of the only bits of her magic that Stella can make successfully, are her poppets, small figure shaped stuffed items that she must enclose a personal item of the person targeted within. When the stuffed poppet is made as life like as possible and has something like a hair enclosed, she would prick the heart to kill someone, while she is miles away! The coven help pay for her to travel to Boston, where Ethan is based and working a few events, and she dresses up to attend a political gala he is speaking at. The only problem is that as soon as she approaches him, the attraction between them is almost electric! Stella can feel a blue stream coming from her chest and moving towards him and thinks her magic is going a bit haywire. One of her special magical skills is to be able to see magic in others and identify if people have magic and what kind, prophetic, physical or personal. She scans Ethan but thinks he is fully human, with no magic whatsoever. Her only problem is sensing some sort of magic in the room, but not being able to identify who or where they are.
Ethan talks to her and insists on a dance with her, where she gets to know him a bit better and all the good he seems to do. Nothing about him makes her think she should be killing him, even if he is a descendant of Cotton! She can’t bring herself to do it and her younger sister Jade is her worst accuser and says she should have been the chosen one, because she would have done it by now and saved the rest of the coven. She manages to push the coven’s worries away and stating will be seeing him the next day and should have a better chance to grab a hair from him then. But it seems she is not the only witch who is after Ethan, as she gets waylaid by an older woman who is worried that Stella is there to steal an object of power from her and her coven. The more she gets to know Ethan, the more she is confused, as she finds his apartment door protected by a very strong ward! She’s falling for him and now finds herself in the middle of a war between her own coven who wants him dead, and this Boston coven who have links to something very dangerous they want unlocked and Ethan is the key. Unfortunately for Stella, her own coven will take matters into their own hands and the High Priestess has her own conclusions as to why Stella is finding it hard to complete her task. There is a fourth type of magic which is extremely rare and was part of why she and her sister lost both their parents within days, and left Stella not wanting aby sort of relationship or love. She has to take actions against her own, however difficult that could be, but there are more surprises to come as Ethan has secrets of his own to reveal to her. I can’t wait to read the next book to see what happens with them. I received an ARC copy of this book from BookSprout and I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.