Playing the Witch Card - Softcover

Dell'Antonia, KJ

 
9780593713792: Playing the Witch Card
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593713796 ISBN 13: 9780593713792
Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

Gilmore Girls meets Practical Magic in the latest novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Chicken Sisters

She gave up on magic. But magic didn't give up on her.

Three generations of magic. Two rogue exes. One Tarot deck.
The perfect recipe for chaos.


Flair Hardwicke knows three things: magic is real, love isn’t, and relying on either ends in disaster. So while she’s grateful for the chance to take over her grandmother’s Kansas bakery after she finally leaves her cheating husband, she won’t be embracing Nana’s fortune-telling side-hustle. Hers is a strictly no-magic operation—until the innocent batch of Tarot card cookies Flair bakes for the town’s Halloween celebration unleashes the power of the family deck, luring Flair’s unpredictable mother to town, tempting Flair’s magic-obsessed daughter, and bringing back Flair’s first love while ensnaring her ex in a curse she can’t break.  

Flair’s attempts to control the chaos only make things worse, playing right into the hands of a powerful witch. Suddenly there’s far more at stake than her status as the most reluctant witch in town, and the magic Flair has long rejected becomes the only card she has left to play.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

KJ Dell'Antonia is the former editor of The New York Times' Motherlode and the co-host of the #AmWriting Podcast, as well as the author of How to Be a Happier Parent, In Her Boots, and the instant New York Times bestseller and Reese's Book Club pick, The Chicken Sisters. She lives with her family on a small farm in Lyme, New Hampshire, but retains an abiding love for her childhood in Texas and Kansas.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One

Monday, October 26

Other people, when forced to start over, do so in appropriate places. New York. Los Angeles. Bozeman. Only Flair would wind up in Kansas, dragging a hand-painted, life-sized figure of Jack Skellington into her bakery and wondering where to hide it until the horror show that was Halloween in Rattleboro finally lurched to an end this weekend.

Flair hated seeing even the outside of her tidy space besmirched with the trappings of a ridiculous holiday that invited exactly the kind of chaos that she normally kept firmly at bay. But she'd had to accept it. From the skeleton on the now spiderweb-covered bench to the black-and-orange garlands and the wheelbarrow of painted pumpkins, her precarious new venture had become part of a Main Street so drenched in town-funded Halloween preparations that it was impossible to rest your eyes on a surface not wrapped in twinkle lights or faux-aged into flawless Gothic dereliction.

But Jack eating a slice of bloodred cherry pie was taking it a step too far.

Like nearly everyone, he was taller than Flair, making him difficult to maneuver, but Flair would not let that stop her from ridding her entryway of the blight. She wrestled him through the door and looked around the shop, wondering where she could stash him until the town's Halloween powers that be came to retrieve him in November. Or maybe he could meet an untimely and tragic end before then.

Lucie looked up from one of the white tables where she sat with her ankles wrapped around the legs of a turquoise chair, which she had-under duress-helped Flair to paint before Buttersweet Bakery's opening in August. Ostensibly she was doing vocab, but more likely she was staring into the phone Flair had given her when they moved. Flair's plan had been for Lucie to connect with (and feel appropriately cool next to) her new eighth-grade classmates, but Lucie preferred to use it to complain to her father and her friends back "home" in St. Louis about the cruelty of her mother's decision to move them both to the boondocks.

"Grand is having a show in St. Louis tomorrow," she said. "If we were there, we could go."

"Well, we're not," Flair said automatically. "And Grand's shows aren't G-rated, so we wouldn't be going anyway." Would Jack fit behind the hutch that was very nearly the only thing left of what had until recently been Marie's Teas, or was she going to have to find a place for him in her kitchen? "We'll see her soon."

"That's what you always say," said Lucie, who was clearly gearing up for another monologue on her favorite topic, how you have ruined my life. "But it's been since her birthday two years ago. If we were home, we would at least have dinner or something."

Maybe. Or maybe Cynthia would be so overrun by fans of the bewilderingly successful vampire-and-witch romances she wrote that-darn-she wouldn't be able to fit them in. Flair was relieved when the bells on the door interrupted her daughter before the pointless debate could continue. She tried but failed to hide Jack behind her as she prepared a welcoming, but not overwhelming, smile for what would be her first customer of the day. At 3:30 in the afternoon, but Flair wasn't counting.

Who was she kidding? Of course she was-and the count would still be zero, because unless Renee Oakes had abandoned her distaste for all things Flair and Flair-adjacent, the woman who walked through the door was not and would not ever be a customer. "He's supposed to be outside, Hardwicke," Renee said, pointing to the pumpkin-headed particleboard figure behind Flair. "We put him there this morning."

Flair drew herself to her full height-which had to be at least six inches shorter than the stern blonde in front of her-and prepared to deliver a considered and logical explanation for why this decoration did not represent Buttersweet, even in the context of the all-encompassing town Halloween festival Renee directed with what should have been admirable dedication.

"But he's hideous," Flair said. "His eyes are seriously terrifying, and he looks more like an axe murderer than a friendly Halloween mayor dude or whatever he is. I mean, where did anyone even find this? The drive-in movie theater's dump?"

"I painted it," Renee said.

Oh. Flair turned to look at the creation leering back at her and could think of no way to backtrack over what she'd just said. Life, she thought, not for the first time, really needed some kind of rewind button.

"And you have an obligation to display the holiday decor provided to you by the decoration committee."

Flair knew that. Renee had already given her a "reference" copy of the building's covenant, which also required that she maintain the window boxes, whose riot of fall foliage and flowers threatened daily to overwhelm her entrance, as well as the paint and the trim (in approved colors only) and all the rest of the landscaping. She felt her resolve weakening. "But I don't even serve pie."

"I'll put it back outside," Renee said, taking the decoration from Flair and lifting it easily. She glanced around at the empty tables and the full pastry case before giving Flair a pitying look. "Maybe pie would help."

Renee marched out the door, Jack under her arm. Flair could see her through the windows, standing him prominently on the sidewalk in a way that would effectively deter any potential customers.

She looked at Lucie, hoping for some sympathy-Jack Skellington was truly dreadful-but Lucie was stuffing the worksheets Flair didn't think she'd so much as glanced at into her backpack. "I'm going home," Lucie said. "Unless you want to give me a ride."

"It's four blocks."

"Yeah, but it's not like you're doing anything."

Flair pointed to the door. Lucie went out as Loretta Oakes, the only member of the Oakes family Flair regarded fondly at this point, came in. At least Lucie managed to return Renee's mother's greeting politely. Either she did have some manners, or she was, like everyone else in town, both terrified by and in awe of Loretta. Flair would take whatever she could get.

Unlike Renee, Loretta embraced Flair, bringing with her a spicy, faintly floral scent that tugged at a memory Flair preferred to leave unpursued. Loretta also brought with her a comforting sense that here, at least, was someone who was happy that Flair was back in Rattleboro.

"My usual, please," Loretta said, taking a seat at the table closest to the counter. "And join me, if you can."

Flair appreciated the suggestion that she might suddenly be overwhelmed with customers, although Loretta must know as well as she did that it was unlikely. Obediently, Flair took up her place behind the case full of scones and cookies and flaky croissants, all lined up on their trays, swiveling the portafilter into place and waiting for the grinder's familiar growl.

Her occasional assistant, Callie, whose wages she really could not afford, had suggested renaming things "in the holiday spirit" and had gone as far as "Spooky Scones" and "Devilish Danishes" before Flair shut her down. Flair's baked goods weren't the kind of thing you bought in a plastic clamshell at Dillons. They were award-winning pastries that deserved better. On the cover of Bon Appétit once, she reminded herself. Featured in Martha Stewart's Holiday Cookies issue three times: see also the triptych on the wall. Midwest Living said, last year, that even if David's Table ran out of steak and couldn't fry another frite, it would still be worth the wait for Flair's Pavlova bars alone.

But after two solid months of effort, she couldn't seem to entice anyone in Rattleboro to try one. If today was anything like yesterday, Loretta would be her only patron. And she'd clearly noticed that not one thing on the carefully arranged trays had been...

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Verlag
Penguin Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2023
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593713796
ISBN 13 
9780593713792
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
352
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
preigu
mail@preigu.de

Lengericher Landstr. 19
Osnabrück
49078
Deutschland

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