Summary:
ABC Spellcraft #1
What if the words you wrote came true?
Spellcraft isn’t exactly a respectable business, but it does pay the bills. At least, it should. Unfortunately, Dixon Penn failed his Spellcraft initiation. Instead of working in his family’s shop, he’s stuck delivering takeout orders in his uncle’s beat-up Buick.
Winning a Valentine’s Day contest at the largest greeting card company in the tri-state area would be just the thing to get his life back on track—but something at Precious Greetings just doesn’t add up. And despite numerous warnings to quit pestering them about his contest entry, he just can’t stop himself from coming back again and again.
It doesn’t hurt that the head of security is such a hottie. If Dixon had any common sense, he’d be scared of the big, mysterious, tattooed Russian.
To be fair, no one ever accused him of being too smart….
The ABCs of Spellcraft is a series filled with bad jokes and good magic, where MM Romance meets Paranormal Cozy. A perky hero, a brooding love interest, and delightfully twisty-turny stories that never end up quite where you’d expect.
Quill Me Now originally debuted in the Bad Valentine collection, with Love Magic by Jesi Lea Ryan, Hidden Hearts by Clare London, and Temporary Dad by Dev Bentham.
Quill Me Now #1
Original Review February 2019:We all know what happens when it comes to wishes, it is all in the wording well in Quill Me Now, magic and spells is all about the wording too. Who knew the extent of the headache it would be when no one ever wants to leave a restaurant because of the slogan? Dixon knows but unfortunately for him, spellcrafting that runs in his family doesn't seem to run in his veins but he can spot a poorly thought out one a mile away. Having been summoned after sending in an entry to a greeting card contest, Dixon meets Yuri when he warns him to stay away but needing the money a winning entry would bring him Dixon is not easily kept away. That's it about the plot you'll get but let me tell you, Quill Me Now is a lovely holiday gem that I would love to see more of but if this is all we get then it is absolutely delightful. Magic, love, humor, good guys, bad guys all brought together by the writing style of Jordan Castillo Price, what more can a person ask for?
Volume 1
Original Audiobook Review February 2020:
The brilliance of Dixon and Yuri, who shouldn't work on the surface but are a perfect fit once you see them together, is brought to life in this audiobook collection of the series. There really is nothing new I can add to my original reviews for this delightfully fun series other than it is quite possibly even more zany and romantic the second time around.Since there isn't anything new for me to add let me just comment on the narration. Often when it comes to audiobooks, I rarely find the narrator's renditions match the voices I heard in my head when I originally read them(I should mention to those new to my reviews that I very rarely listen to audios that I haven't previously read as I tend to zone out here and there as I find myself concentrating on what I'm doing and by having read the story first then I'm not "lost" when I zone back in) but Nick Hudson's version of Dixon was spot-on. The nuances of Dixon's zany-ness & peppy-ness was pretty darn perfect to how I "heard" him originally, now Yuri was slightly different but I found his take on the character even better than my own. Could someone else have done as good a job? Sure, but now that I've heard his Dixon and Yuri I can't imagine anyone else bringing the guys to life.
One last note, I mentioned in my review for Something Stinks at the Spa how these stories made me nostalgic for the movie serials of the 30s & 40s my parents collect. That still rings true but having listened to them on audio now they also make me nostalgic for the old radio shows of the same era that I collect. I kept expecting to hear Harlow Wilcox, Bill Goodwin, or Harry Von Zell break in with a sponsor's commercial and that is all down to the incredibly amazing meshing of Jordan Castillo Price's storytelling and Nick Hudson's narration.
RATING:
“Nothing good ever came of a valentine,” Sabina declared with great vehemence and utter conviction. “You hear me, Dixon? Nothing.”
I love my cousin. I do. But there’s opinionated…and then there’s Sabina. I said, “You haven’t even heard the details.”
“I don’t need to, either. Everyone knows those contests are a bunch of baloney.”
“Who’s everyone?”
She ignored the question. “And this ‘big prize’… what’s it even supposed to be?”
I squinted at the fine print. It was smudged with barbecue sauce, but if I held it up to the light, enough came through for me to get the gist. “A thousand dollars.”
Sabina waded through the furniture we were saving for someday. She squeezed between two heavy oak dressers, veered around a massive roll-top desk, climbed over a pile of boxes, and worked her way into our kitchen. It was really just an old utility sink and a microwave perched on top of a mini fridge, but both of us liked to keep up the illusion that we still lived in an actual house, not just a hastily converted attic. She attempted to clatter some dishes to demonstrate how ridiculous she thought my idea was, but we’d sold the maple kitchenette on Craigslist to keep creditors off our backs. And since the only flat surface to slam her mug against was a vinyl card table, it just gave off an unsatisfying thwack. She filled the mug with water and stuck it in the microwave, then crossed her arms, turned to me and said, “A thousand dollars for a few lines of schmaltzy poetry?”
“The verse doesn’t have to rhyme.” I slid the ad across the table for her to look at.
Sabina ignored it. “There’s no possible way anyone could afford to pay that kind of money to produce a valentine.”
“But Precious Greetings is the biggest card company in the state.”
“Even if every lovestruck dope in the city bought one, they’d barely recoup their outlay. Plus, who spends money on paper cards anymore when everything’s digital?” She slammed down a box of hot chocolate with an even quieter thwack, then glared at the microwave as if it would heat her water faster. “You’re just the type to fall for this kind of scheme, too.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“A soft touch. You’re always giving your spare change to that wino down by the underpass. And he probably lives in a cushier place than we do.”
Well, no argument there.
No one would ever take Sabina for a soft touch. As we were growing up, strangers usually thought she was a boy. The weird, too-short haircuts from my Aunt Rose and hand-me-down clothes from me didn’t help. Nowadays, the ratty denim vest and bleach-tipped fauxhawk tomboy look were entirely deliberate. Plainly female…and no one pegged her for a pushover.
Not like me.
Trustworthy. Sensitive. Nice. This was the opinion strangers formed of me before I even said hello. I guess I just had one of those faces.
I love my cousin. I do. But there’s opinionated…and then there’s Sabina. I said, “You haven’t even heard the details.”
“I don’t need to, either. Everyone knows those contests are a bunch of baloney.”
“Who’s everyone?”
She ignored the question. “And this ‘big prize’… what’s it even supposed to be?”
I squinted at the fine print. It was smudged with barbecue sauce, but if I held it up to the light, enough came through for me to get the gist. “A thousand dollars.”
Sabina waded through the furniture we were saving for someday. She squeezed between two heavy oak dressers, veered around a massive roll-top desk, climbed over a pile of boxes, and worked her way into our kitchen. It was really just an old utility sink and a microwave perched on top of a mini fridge, but both of us liked to keep up the illusion that we still lived in an actual house, not just a hastily converted attic. She attempted to clatter some dishes to demonstrate how ridiculous she thought my idea was, but we’d sold the maple kitchenette on Craigslist to keep creditors off our backs. And since the only flat surface to slam her mug against was a vinyl card table, it just gave off an unsatisfying thwack. She filled the mug with water and stuck it in the microwave, then crossed her arms, turned to me and said, “A thousand dollars for a few lines of schmaltzy poetry?”
“The verse doesn’t have to rhyme.” I slid the ad across the table for her to look at.
Sabina ignored it. “There’s no possible way anyone could afford to pay that kind of money to produce a valentine.”
“But Precious Greetings is the biggest card company in the state.”
“Even if every lovestruck dope in the city bought one, they’d barely recoup their outlay. Plus, who spends money on paper cards anymore when everything’s digital?” She slammed down a box of hot chocolate with an even quieter thwack, then glared at the microwave as if it would heat her water faster. “You’re just the type to fall for this kind of scheme, too.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“A soft touch. You’re always giving your spare change to that wino down by the underpass. And he probably lives in a cushier place than we do.”
Well, no argument there.
No one would ever take Sabina for a soft touch. As we were growing up, strangers usually thought she was a boy. The weird, too-short haircuts from my Aunt Rose and hand-me-down clothes from me didn’t help. Nowadays, the ratty denim vest and bleach-tipped fauxhawk tomboy look were entirely deliberate. Plainly female…and no one pegged her for a pushover.
Not like me.
Trustworthy. Sensitive. Nice. This was the opinion strangers formed of me before I even said hello. I guess I just had one of those faces.
Jordan Castillo PriceAuthor and artist Jordan Castillo Price writes paranormal sci-fi thrillers colored by her time in the Midwest, from inner city Chicago, to various cities across southern Wisconsin. She’s recently settled in a 1910 Cape Cod near Lake Michigan with tons of character and a plethora of bizarre spiders. Her influences include Ouija boards, Return of the Living Dead, “light as a feather, stiff as a board,” girls with tattoos and boys in eyeliner.
Jordan is best known as the author of the PsyCop series, an unfolding tale of paranormal mystery and suspense starring Victor Bayne, a gay medium who’s plagued by ghostly visitations. And her quirky, sweet, magical series The ABCs of Spellcraft is sure to make you smile.
SMASHWORDS / BOOKBUB / B&N
EMAILS: jordan@psycop.com
Quill Me Now #1
ABC Spellcraft Series
