Payback's a Witch (The Witches of Thistle Grove #1)

by Lana Harper

The effort she’d put into my homecoming made me yearn for a drink, in a way that might be considered a tad problematic if I allowed myself to dwell on it too long.

a weapons-grade smile,

“Don’t be precious about your cocktails, Harlow.” “Not all of us were lucky enough to be born with a taste for liquefied gummy worms, Avramov.” She held up a commanding finger. “Not born with—acquired, through hard work and sacrifice.”

There was a new cloudiness to her, a watercolor wash of sadness

Angelcake McSparklepony

“Sparklepony?” I asked, barely managing not to laugh. “Like a unicorn, but worse,” Talia replied with an exaggerated shudder. “Unwilling to impale even the deserving with one’s head.”

it was way sexier than touching a dry and dusty tome should ever really be.

It looked like a room that should have a name, something classy yet sinister.

I would have loved to leave, too, but I refused to grant Gareth the luxury of forgetting that I was here.

deeply extra

“But you have to admit, still pretty sick.” “I assure you that I one hundred percent do not have to admit that.”

she gave me one of her obliterating smiles,

unattainable as some feral goddess, the kind that might turn into a fox and dash away into the dark if you ever crept too close.

your cheeks are the exact color of impure thoughts.”

hermetic eyelock

lips dark with wine,

the sluice of moonlight

“Try not to eat my guests,

honey-dipped rasp of a laugh

Being that self-sufficient . . . that’s how you drive away the people that matter. The people that you want to stay.”

Gabrielle was such a wellspring of affection that even I, a Harlow with the chilly soul of a British solicitor when it came to most PDA, couldn’t help but be taken in.

My standard schnauzer was apparently a better person than me, a dismal truth that just about summed up this entire mess I’d made.

widening her eyes and spreading her hands in a show of hilariously unconvincing innocence.

frozen-pond eyes.

in such fine fettle.

A wedge of waxing moon surveilled us as we walked along the pavers, a secretive face set in three-quarters profile against a curtain of damask dark.

I like this book, but it’s kind of a slog to read, and it’s because it’s SO overwritten sometimes. I appreciate a good poetic turn, but geez, it was moonlit, we get it, let’s keep it moving.

“Leave it to magic to let you down when you need it most.”

that wicked marauder’s grin