“Bedlam Bewitched” (Deadnettle Publishing, 2024, paperback, 335 pages, $15.99) by Cheryl Spanos is the perfect light-hearted read for the holidays. Seventeen-year-old Cory decides to leave boarding school after her Uncle Horace dies and wills her a share of his Berkeley-based magical bookstore. Cory is well aware that this is no ordinary bookstore. Here, muscled men flex their pecs on romance novel covers, animated comic books perform laugh-out-loud antics, and ancient spell books reveal their secrets — but only when they feel like it. Cory has her own special powers, but they are not fully under her control and the result threatens to be catastrophic.
Cory has fond childhood memories amidst the stacks of Bedlam Books with childhood friend, Jack. But to her dismay, her Uncle Horace has willed the other half of the bookstore to Jack, who does not want to be business partners with her. Debonaire Jack wants to buy her out. But Cory is looking for a fresh start and refuses to sell. Little does she know that a financial disaster and her lingering feelings for Jack await. As her innovative ideas to save the bookstore pan out, Cory’s romantic life ignites with the appearance of a hot, motorcycle bad boy. To further Cory’s problems, Jack’s vengeful undead fiancé seems to have cast a spell on her husband.
“Bedlam Bewitched” will cast a spell on readers as they enter a fun-filled bookstore and root for Cory as she discovers that all is not as it seems in this delightful book repository. Fans of Cassandra Clare’s “City of Bones” and Stefano A. Giovannoni’s “The Dark Secrets of Oliveto” will likely enjoy Spanos’ debut novel.
“Bedlam Bewitched” is a mixture of magical rom-com, conniving swindlers, and an adorable ghostly dog made only of bones, all sprinkled with a zest of witchery. The twists and turns will keep readers’ mortal fingers turning the pages long into the witching hour.
Cheryl Spanos writes short stories and fantasy novels for teens and adults. A former software engineer, she earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science and worked in computer-aided design and full-stack web development.
In between, her life path veered into literary and artistic pursuits. Her children’s fiction has appeared in “Hunger Mountain”, “Beyond Centauri”, and Stories for Children magazines. The short story, “Are We There Yet?”, appeared in the 2014 “California Writers Club Literary Review”, and won Honorable Mention for Mainstream/Literary fiction in the Writer’s Digest 77th Annual Writing Competition. Her middle-grade fantasy manuscript, “Tougher than Dragon Hide”, won Runner-Up for Children’s Fiction in the San Francisco Writers Conference Contest. Follow her at http://www.cherylspanos.com.
About Jill Hedgecock
Jill Hedgecock is a local author of a Doberman trilogy series: “Between Shadow’s Eyes” (Book 1) and “From Shadow’s Perspective (Book 2) and “In Shadow’s Reflection”. (Book 3). Her books are available on amazon.com and http://www.jillhedgecock.com
About the Author
