Wicked Charm by Amber Hart

Okay, first off, look at that pretty cover!  It’s beautiful!  I love the purple color mixed with the white to create this really original looking cover that totally stands out.  I think it was one of my favorite things about the book, to be honest!

I read Wicked Charm pretty fast – in the course of a single afternoon I found myself wrapped up in this one, beginning and then finishing it.  I enjoyed how fast paced the whole book felt – there was nothing slow about it, so if you have an afternoon and you want a good romantic mystery, this is one that I think would be perfect.

“The swamp is the kind of place a girl can get lost in and never find her way out.”

Willow has moved to her Gran’s house in the swamp with her parents – the swamp that is known as The Devil’s Swamp.  Alligators, fog, and all kinds of mysterious things are said to happen here – and not many people want to be around to find out just what.

When Willow moves in, she becomes the new girl, and to her amazement, she immediately gains the attention of Beau Cadwell, the boy who lives next door.  She is enchanted with him from the first time she lays her eyes on him – keeping in mind their childhood friendship from years ago.

“‘He’s taken to you already.  That’s not a good thing, by the way.’
‘Maybe it could be a good thing.’
‘You think that now,’ she says, ‘But your tears will tell you differently later.'”

Both Willow and Beau start a dangerous game where they continuously flirt with one another, even though Gran and Willow’s new friend is telling her that she absolutely must stay away from him, because he is not a nice guy and she is only bound to get her heart broken.  Willow, on the other hand, can’t stay away – the feelings that she is developing for Beau are taking front and center stage, and no matter what, she finds herself drawn to him, and him to her.

While they are flirting and starting a relationship that is almost forbidden, strange things begin happening in the swamp – murders.  Girls from school are turning up dead, and there’s only one thing that ties them all together – Beau.

While Beau claims innocence, Willow tries to help prove that he is right, and that the murders that are occurring are definitely not his fault.

“‘I can’t promise to give you  myself, the real me.  And I can’t promise to give you what you need or deserve, but I also can’t stop wanting you.'”

As the two of them keep their relationship growing, they also work together to find clues that will prove that Beau didn’t commit the murders, once and for all.

Wicked Charm was absolutely not a bad book.  It was full of romance (like super insta-love) and mystery, while delivering a setting that was described wonderfully and practically put you right into the book.

I liked Beau’s character, and while I tried so hard to like Willow, I just felt no connection to her and because of that, really wasn’t a fan of her sections of the book like I was Beau’s.  I did love that this was told in alternating viewpoints between Willow and Beau, because we were able to get a look into the minds of both characters, making them really jump off the page.

I think my favorite character in Wicked Charm was definitely Willow’s Gran.  There is so much going on with her – she tries to keep Willow away from Beau, but we don’t find out her real reasons for doing so until a little later in the book, making it take on a whole new perspective. I love her foul-mouthed ways and how she feeds the alligators – she’s overall just funny, mean-spirited at times, and really a character that I feel we haven’t really seen before in a book like this.  Plus, the relationship that she and Willow share is a really special one.

I really wish that there would have been less in terms of romance and more in terms of mystery and a bit more suspense.  Sure, there was plenty of mystery, with the murders going on, but I feel like that whole subplot kind of took a back burner to the insta-love that was going on between Willow and Beau.  Sorry, but I kind of think that if a bunch of girls were turning up murdered, all with a connection to the boy next door, I would definitely be staying far away from that.

The story really was engaging, though, and I loved trying to solve the mystery of the murders.  I did manage to guess who it was, but there are some really interesting twists and turns in Wicked Charm that will really make you think twice!