A Reader Recommends: Jessica Khoury

Khoury was first introduced to me on a podcast where she was called a Fantasy Worldbuilding Expert (very official). I like fantasy with good worldbuilding, and her Mystwick books were being pushed by Audible around the same time, so I decided to give her a try.

Mystwick is an upper middle grade magical academy series along the lines of Harry Potter, and I loved it. I made my sister listen to it with their kids, and they all loved it too. I especially recommend the audio edition because music and magic are intertwined in this world, so there is background instrumental music added to the audiobook that really adds to the experience.

I have also read two of her Young Adult novels. The Forbidden Wish (an Aladdin retelling that I highly recommend) and most recently, The Moor Witch.

The Moor Witch begins with Rose, a young witch in a desperate situation. She uses an unknown spell (with cool weaving magic) to defend herself and inadvertently summons a hot fae. But before anyone gets too excited, they should know that the hot fae in this book are not just eye candy. Rose gets trapped into a bargain, and years later, she faces the consequences. She has to help the fae find a way back to the fae realm, or lose all her magic and probably her life (especially since her life currently revolves around her magic).

And standing in her way is a hot Scottish laird who hates magic.

Drama ensues!

I loved the way the fae were handled in this book. The magical weaving was cool, and yes, Khoury is still just all-around awesome at fantasy worldbuilding. She is also very good at building characters with complimentary arcs to match all the enemies to lovers, opposites attract vibes we have going here.

I did get a bit lost on some of the finer points of character backstory and all the twisty reveals she has in here, but that could just be me being slow.

The overall story is great, and the romance is clean (stops at making out and some innuendo). The Moor Witch is a complete standalone, but I’ll be on the lookout for more books from Khoury in the future.

Especially the next Mystwick audiobook, please and thank you!