Book: To Vex and to Hex by Neena Noon
Reviewed by Suzy Wickedly Good Reads
Rating: 2.5/5
To Vex and to Hex — Neena Noon
All the Right Ingredients… But the Magic Just Didn't Come Together! 🔮📚
A cozy rom-com featuring witches AND a bookstore? SOLD! Throw in grumpy/sunshine, rivals-to-lovers, found family, an age gap, and small-town vibes, and you've practically written a checklist of my favorite romance tropes! Unfortunately, To Vex and to Hex was my first book by Neena Noon, and while it had plenty of potential, the execution fell a bit short for me.
Lucy works at a charming local bookstore owned by Charlie, a man who has become more like a father to her over the years. When Charlie breaks his hip, his estranged grandson Grayson arrives to help care for him and keep the bookstore running. Grayson is a thirtysomething literature professor with a Type A personality, while Lucy is a free-spirited young woman who doesn't particularly appreciate someone coming in and disrupting her world. Naturally, these two clash. And because Lucy and Charlie are witches, some of those disagreements involve a little magical mischief! Sounds adorable, right?
Well… here's where things started unraveling for me. The biggest problem? So much of the conflict could have been resolved with one honest, adult conversation! Grayson is an educated, professional man who teaches literature at the university level. Yet he spends much of the story wrestling with jealousy and resentment over Lucy's relationship with his grandfather rather than actually discussing his feelings with Charlie. And Lucy? For someone in her twenties, she frequently behaves more like a jealous teenager than an adult. Some of her hexes, including repeatedly locking Grayson out of the bookstore while he's standing in the pouring rain, felt less like charming romantic rivalry and more like petty sibling warfare. I enjoy witty banter and playful antagonism, but there's a difference between entertaining mischief and characters behaving immaturely simply to keep the conflict going.
Then there were the plot details that left me scratching my head. Charlie hasn't seen Grayson since he was a child, yet somehow this estranged grandson, who lives in another country, is listed as his emergency contact instead of Lucy, the woman who has worked alongside him for years and is practically family. And Grayson immediately drops his career and travels internationally to care for a grandfather he believes abandoned him? I could have accepted either situation with a little more explanation, but together they felt rather convenient for moving the plot forward.
And can we talk about the WITCHES?! 🔮Lucy and Charlie have magical abilities, but the witchcraft itself takes such a back seat that I kept wondering why it was included at all. Charlie can magically summon objects into his hand, yet his broken hip creates a situation that requires Grayson to uproot his entire life. Of course, magic doesn't necessarily replace the need for physical care, but I wanted the story to explore those limitations and make the magical world feel more meaningful. Instead, the witchcraft often felt like another trope added to an already crowded collection.
There are some entertaining moments between Lucy and Grayson, and I genuinely liked the concept of the bookstore and the found-family relationship at the heart of the story. But the slow-burn romance became a frustrating cycle of pushing, pulling, jealousy, and misunderstandings that could have been resolved with a simple conversation.
My Wicked Verdict: To Vex and to Hex had all the ingredients for a delightful cozy paranormal rom-com, but the characters' immaturity, convenient plot developments, and underused witchcraft kept the story from casting its spell on me. Sometimes even the most wonderful ingredients don't blend into the magical recipe you were hoping for. This one had the potential to be a beautiful painting, but too many of the connecting lines felt jagged and forced. 🔮💔
I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.