Back in a Spell (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #3)(86)
Nina loves Castle Camelot, and feels that it’s much more of a home to her than Tintagel, the Blackmoores’ ancestral demesne. What did you think of Castle Camelot after seeing it through Nina’s eyes?
As a Thistle Grove “normie,” Morty has a lot of (largely negative) opinions about the ethics of the oblivion glamour cast over Thistle Grove. To what extent did you agree with him, and could you see Nina’s counterpoints as to why the glamour is necessary for the witch community’s enduring safety?
Nina and Jessa have a very tight-knit relationship; Jessa even moved to Thistle Grove to be closer to her best friend. Do you think Nina’s qualms about the fact that Jessa is unaware of her friend’s witchy identity are well-founded? Do you think she’s letting Jessa down by not trying harder to be more honest with her?
Nina’s power grows exponentially over the course of the story. What struck you the most about seeing her grapple with her enhanced strength, while guiding Morty on his own journey of magical discovery?
What did you think of Nina’s behavior at Tomes & Omens? Do you understand why she chose to take such drastic action, or do you condemn her for it?
Why do you think Belisama chose to bind Morty and Nina? Do you think it was ultimately helpful to Nina’s development—and possibly to Morty’s, as well?
On the whole, do you think you’d enjoy being the recipient of divine favor the way Nina experienced it? Why or why not?
What did you think of the punishments—and promotions—Emmy Harlow doled out at the Thorns’ Yule celebration? Would you have chosen similarly or differently?
Keep reading for a preview of the next book in The Witches of Thistle Grove series by New York Times bestselling author Lana Harper.
In Charm’s Way
The Smallest Victories
The viridian teardrops should have been in bloom by now. That much, at least, I had no trouble remembering.
But I’d been trawling the Hallows Hill woods for almost four hours, walking the forest in as methodical a grid as one could manage on terrain that tended to shift around you like a daydream if you let your attention wander, and I hadn’t spotted even a glimmer of the distinctive, iridescent color that gave the flowers their name. A languid twilight had begun to gather above the rustling treetops; an early-summer wash of dusky violets and blues that dipped the already hushed bower in an almost melancholy light, as subdued as a sigh. If anything, I was more likely to spot one of the elusive flowers now than I had been earlier. Viridians unfurled at dusk, revealing glinting amber centers like fireflies—the stamens that contained the magically active pollen I was hunting for.
Six months ago, I wouldn’t even have needed to traipse along a grid. I’d been hiking Hallows Hill for pleasure since I was a kid, even when I wasn’t on the prowl for floral ingredients for a tincture or brew. Many of the plants that thrived up here were unique, native to Thistle Grove. Which herbs, blooms, lichens, and mosses grew precisely where had once been imprinted on me—an intricate schematic crystallized in my mind. In the Before the Oblivion times, I’d had a near-perfect photographic memory; the kind science wasn’t convinced existed, even if every other wunderkind detective on TV claimed to have one.
But I’d really had one. The ability to recall whole pages of text I’d read only once; to summon up faded illustrations I’d pored over by candlelight; to confidently rattle off lists of ingredients for obscure potions I’d never even prepared. The Delilah Harlow of the BTO era hadn’t had the first notion of just how much she took her mind for granted.
In my bleakest moments, I hated her for that smug complacency almost as much as I hated Nina Blackmoore for what she’d done to me.
Shaking off the creeping angst—in the months since I’d lost and regained most of my memory, I’d developed an excruciating tendency to brood over my own misfortune, a waste of productive time if there ever was one—I turned my attention back to the forest floor. Viridian teardrops often grew in little clusters of three, usually around the exposed root balls of deciduous trees. By this late in May, there should already have been a good crop of them ready for harvest.
But Lady’s Lake had been a little tempestuous, lately. Nina Blackmoore’s discovery of Belisama’s statue at its distant bottom seemed to have stirred up the sleeping avatar, jolted the piece of the goddess that lived in our lake into some semi-elevated state of awareness. Among other things, we now enjoyed spectacular lightning storms crackling just above the lake on an almost weekly basis. Balls of Saint Elmo’s fire had been seen drifting down Hallows Hill and through the town below, rolling through walls like ghostly, electrified tumbleweeds and scaring the entire shit out of Thistle Grove normies. (The oblivion glamour cast over the town prevented memory formation of spells cast by Thistle Grove’s witches, but it was nowhere near broad enough to cover all the other unusual “meteorological phenomena” the town reliably served up.) Disturbances like that might have seeped into the forest as well, upset its natural growth rhythms or shifted them.