Quick Synopsis

When a young witch gets a life-changing chance to compete in a magical reality show, sparks fly as she’s partnered with a man she can’t stand.

Publisher’s Synopsis

In a Miami where enchantment is just another college major, the magic of television could change two lives.

Penelope Delmar, a broke salesgirl, has been chosen to compete on Cast Judgment, a spellcasting reality show. The winner gets a big cash prize, and for extra hype, this season is the Spellebrity Edition: every contestant will be paired with a celebrity teammate. Unfortunately, her partner, Leandro Presto, is best known for his goofy viral spell videos, not his skills.

Gil Contreras, alias Leandro Presto, has been crushing on his pen pal Penelope for months. Now they’re working together to win a contest that could save his grandfather’s charity—except he has to stay in character the whole time, so his dream girl thinks he’s a total loser.

Can they beat snobby rivals, fix spells gone wrong, and survive increasingly dangerous sabotage attempts to win the grand prize—and each other’s hearts? Or will Gil’s secret make both their magic and romance fizzle out? 

Book Review

Witch You Would is a cute paranormal romance novel in which Penelope Delmar, a broke spell technician/salesgirl, has been chosen to compete on Cast Judgment, a spellcasting reality show. The only problem is she is paired with Tiktok personality Leandro Presto whose videos consist of disastrously messing up spells. But Penelope desperately needs to win the show and its prize. Will Leandro ruin Penelope’s chances or win her heart? 

This novel was not on my radar prior to Aardvark Book Club making it a September pick. I hoped for a quirky romance with a fun and interesting competitive setting. While I liked both Penelope and Leandro as characters, the narrative did not come together for me. 

For her first romance novel, it felt like Lia Amador tried to include too much in 368 pages and as a result did a mediocre job across it all. I find that this is the case with all but one romance I have read set during a competition show. Juggling the dynamics of this setting as well as developing all the characters and building romantic feelings is not easy to pull off successfully. One facet always seems to fall flat. 

While the characters are decently developed and Cast Judgment well thought out, the romance part of Witch You Would could have been better. I think the choice of having Penelope and her love interest meeting prior to the narrative’s start prevented the relationship from flourishing. Feelings are already established for the most part and are told rather than shown. There is some build up between the protagonists during the show, but I needed more then to be believable. 

Overall, Witch You Would is a decent debut novel, especially if you like reading about magic competitions. However, if you are looking for a passionate, deep romance, you will not find it here.