A Curious Kind of Magic – Past Midnight Book Reviews & More

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Spice Rating:

Title: A Curious Kind of Magic

Author: Mara Rutherford

Format: eBook (NetGalley)

Pages: 368

Publication Date: 10/21/25

Publisher: Wednesday Books

Categories: Young Adult, Cozy Fantasy, Romance

Disclaimer: **I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**

Thank you to Wednesday Books for giving me a chance to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Everyone in Ardmuir knows that Willow Stokes is a charlatan, including Willow herself. Her father’s shoppe hasn’t sold anything magical in decades, and it’s only hanging on by the skin of the fake dragon’s teeth Willow sells as charms, along with “enchanted” ostrich eggs, taxidermied chimeras, and talismans made of fools’ gold.

Until outlander Brianna Hargrave appears and turns Willow’s fakes into exactly what they’re purported to be. But try as Willow might to enlist Bri’s help, she wants nothing to do with Willow and her curiosities.

Because Brianna is harboring a secret of her own: everything she touches turns to magic, and the consequences have chased her all the way to Ardmuir. All she wants to do is find a particular missing grimoire, which contains a spell that can finally put an end to her curse.

Desperate to keep her father’s shoppe, Willow proposes a bargain that could save them both. Together with the frustratingly handsome printer’s assistant, the girls will uncover a plot that goes far deeper than either could have imagined. But when Willow is forced to participate in an ambitious collector’s quest for the rarest magical object in the world-a quest that risks almost-certain death-she learns that not all treasure is for sale, and that true magic is closer than she ever could have imagined.

Content Warning:

+ Willow is all alone and she runs a shop of magical items – or at least that is what is advertised. Willow knows nothing in that shop is magical until one day, a person comes in, Brianna, touches an object and makes it magical. From then on Willow concocts a plan to use Bri’s help to turn the stuff in her shop into magical objects so that Willow can finally turn a profit and pay her bills.

+ This is a cozy fantasy filled with magic and the possibilities it can bring. Willow is all alone with only Finlay as her best friend, but when Brianna comes along it opens her up to a new friendship and learning to trust others. Willow has this mindset of thinking she’s a charlatan and a thief but mostly because she’s had to do it to survive. I like how her world opens up when magic is part of her world. There is also a quest in this story that brings Brianna, Willow and Finlay together.

+ The romance isn’t the focus and it’s a sweet romance. Finlay is clearly in love with Willow but he let’s Willow set the pace, even when she doesn’t know what she really wants or deserves.

~ If you aren’t into cozy fantasy, you might find this a slow read especially in the beginning as all they are doing is cleaning the shop and trying to find a grimoire to help break Brianna’s curse. It picks up a little more at the halfway point where Willow takes on another quest.