Alex is dealing with a lot of broken things: her family, her knee, her heart—just to name a few. She could use some magic to fix the situation, but when she finds some, she discovers that a magical fix isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Spells to Mend Broken Hearts by Marissa Macy, which releases on September 15th 2026.
Alex is pretty sure the universe is conspiring against her. Friendless in a new town and with her parents constantly fighting, Alex spends her birthday unpacking alone when she comes across her grandmother’s book of small magic. Alex doesn’t believe in that stuff, but with no birthday plans and nothing to lose, she performs a ritual from the book to attract a friend.
It’s just a coincidence that Tess crashes into her life the very next day…right? Their friendship forms fast and strong, and the way Tess makes Alex’s heart flutter definitely feels like some kind of magic. Together, they make their way through the book’s spells and rituals, healing Tess’s recently broken heart and trying to mend Alex’s broken family.
But it feels as though the book is turning on Alex when her parents announce they’re separating. And when Tess uses a ritual to win back her ex-boyfriend, Alex is forced to face a truth she had not considered. Maybe the magic she felt with Tess was more than friendship . . .
EXCERPT
I didn’t really believe in curses, but the last few months had just been so bleak, and for a birthday to go this badly, there had to be a cosmic reason.
I heaved the cardboard box into the downstairs bathroom and returned to the dining room to open another.
Coffee- table books. I slid it to the living room.
What was actually weird was the way my parents bickered all the time, that Dad kept falling asleep on the couch, and that Mom had decided so suddenly to move us out here. Aunt Rose needed help, of course she did, but Aunt Rose had Mila, and the cancer treatment would end soon if all went well. What was weird was the timing.
The next box was labeled Gold & Sage/Rose. A spark of hope zinged through me. The shop was full of enough candles to get through an apocalypse. There had to be one in there small enough to stick into a cupcake.
A puff of dust escaped the flaps as I opened it. A box from our basement in Philly. Mom must have planned to take it to Rose.
It was full of candleholders, old books, and smaller, even dustier boxes. Rose had kept most of my grandparents’ things in Goldview, but Mom had her small collection of family items in our old basement. Those heirlooms had been tucked away behind toys I’d outgrown, musical instruments, and sports equipment from Stephen’s many hobbies.
A teddy bear was shoved into the side of the box, his fur coarse and one of the button eyes hanging on by a thread. He had been Mom’s when she was a kid, then mine, and later, fated for a dusty box.
My eyes got that salty, crying feeling.
I wanted to crawl into the dusty box, another forgotten thing.
That house had been my entire childhood.
That city had been the only place I’d ever lived.
Field hockey, the only group where I had belonged.
My knee twinged. I hated this birthday.
I rubbed my eyes with the top of my sweatshirt and placed the bear on the floor next to me. I was going to clean him up and put him in my room.
I removed a stack of old leather-bound books, still holding out hope for a candle at the bottom of the box.
I read the spines. The Complete Encyclopedia of Herbs. A Brief History of the Christianization of Northern Europe.
The book at the bottom of the stack was wrapped in a red- and- silver scarf, bound with a piece of twine.
It was too mysterious of a wrapping not to open. I leaned against the dining room wall as I unveiled it.
Under the scarf was a dark blue leather book with gold lettering— On Small Magics.
I was getting pretty far from candles, but I opened it.
There was a note on the first page, blue ink against yellowed paper.
Beatriz,
For the bruja in you.
—Mama
Beatriz was my mom’s name. The book must have been given to her by my grandmother, Donna. She died when I was two years old, but I’d heard a thousand stories about her, about how she’d emigrated from Havana as a very young girl during the Cuban revolution, how in her twenties she’d met my grandfather in a Miami dance club, luring him with legendary dance moves. How her house had been filled with crystals and herbs, how she’d ended up in Goldview through a wild series of events, eventually opening Gold & Sage. She was a woman with a lot of lore. I’d stumbled across her recipe books, but never something as cool as a magic book.
I flipped through the pages, careful not to tear them. The book was filled with mentions of crystals, charms, manifestations, teas, incantations. Curing backaches. Warding off bad spirits. Attracting like- minded people.
Like-minded people. As in friends. The thing I was severely lacking.
I read over the page. It called for a pocket carry. I needed a peridot crystal, some paper, a pen, a lit candle, and something sweet to eat.
I stood up, book in hand, reading over the page.
It wasn’t like I believed it would do anything. Aunt Rose was all about lighting candles, setting intentions, and cool crystals. Mom was always skeptical, poking fun at Rose’s tarot readings and rolling her eyes at words like manifesting. I’d never taken an interest in any of it, but this book felt like a weird coincidence. Finding a forgotten thing, a little something interesting to make this birthday a little less sucky.
A ritual, a task to carry out—it would all keep me from replaying the look on Valentina’s face, over and over again. Besides, what did I have to lose?
And there, at the bottom of the box, as if meant to be, was a single small candle.
I gathered the rest of the supplies from the book.
From the collection of souvenirs on my bookshelf, I grabbed a stone I’d gotten from a bin of rocks at the natural history museum on my fifth- grade field trip. It was almost certainly not peridot, but it was green and close enough.
I snagged an envelope from the recycling bin for the piece of paper. A pen from the kitchen counter.
I lit the candle on the stove and shoved it into the cupcake. I followed the instructions from the book.
Write what you’d like to attract on the piece of paper.
I jotted down personality traits on the envelope— funny, interesting, kind. All embarrassingly generic.
Hold the peridot to your chest and speak what you wrote.
I whispered the words on the paper, cringing at my own voice.
Burn the paper and seal the spell by eating the sweet thing. This will bring sweetness into your life.
I held the envelope over the candle. Nothing happened for a moment, but then the paper caught fire quickly, the flame trailing up to my fingers. I dropped it onto the floor, screamed, and then stomped on it with my sneaker, leaving the half-burnt note on the floor with a bit of ash and a chemical smell in the air. The book should have included a prominent warning not to set your house on fire.
I turned toward the cupcake. The spell didn’t mention what to do with the candle after burning the note, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to make a birthday wish and blow it out. I’d already probably—no, definitely— messed up the spell anyway.
I did not sing “Happy Birthday” to myself. That seemed too sad. But I did stare down the candle for about ten seconds, half of it already melted into a pile of wax atop the lumpy icing. I wished for a friend (as pathetic a wish as they come) and then blew it out.
And this sounds fake, but it’s not— thunder immediately cracked.
