Review: Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble by H.P. Mallory

This is the first book in the Jolie Wilkins series.  The ebook is available for free on amazon, which is how I ended up with it.

I thought I'd like this book.  I usually enjoy stories about witches.  It started out well enough, but the fact that it took me more than a week to read it doesn't bode well for the story.  Lately, I've been flying through everything I read.

With this book though, I felt like I'd been reading a lot, only to realize I wasn't very far into the story at all.  After a while, I just sort of lost interest and didn't care all that much about what happened to Jolie.

She's a psychic in Los Angeles who attracts the interest of a handsome warlock.  He hires her to go back in time and discovers she has amazing powers.  Also he's attracted to her and she's attracted to him, but they spend the whole book hot and cold for each other, and after a while it gets boring. 

Jolie describes herself as being very plain, but every man she meets can't seem to resist her.  There's the warlock, the leader of a pack of werewolves, a sexy vampire and the king of the fairies. Everyone wants Jolie in their bed and they're very up front about it. 

And yet, she claims she doesn't date -- well, she says that at one point, says she's only had sex once, back in tenth grade, I think.  But then several times she mentions she hasn't had a date in six months.  I found that confusing.  If she doesn't date -- not at all -- then why keep saying she hasn't had a date in six months.  Did she date six months ago? 

I never quite understood why everyone was so drawn to her.  It's never revealed what is so attractive about her.  How has she gone her whole life -- or six months -- without dating and now all of a sudden everyone wants her?  Maybe she has some quality that only attracts supernatural beings.

Also, after a while I got tired of Jolie crying over everything.  Seems like every scene resulted in her crying for some reason.  I just didn't care about her or her tears.

I was under the impression this was a fun and light-hearted story, and it's written in a very casual way - but then we have all these near death battles.  Such drama didn't fit with the style.  Or maybe I'm just picky.

While I didn't hate the story, and I was amused by the Bon Jovi mention -- Living in Sin is played during a party, following a waltz -- there are much better witch stories out there.