The follow-up to Erin Sterling’s New York Times bestselling hit The Ex Hex features fan favorite Gwyn and the spine-tinglingly handsome Wells Penhallow as they battle a new band of witches and their own magical chemistry.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Erin Sterling’s The Kiss Curse, which releases on September 20th 2022.
Gwyn Jones is perfectly happy with her life in Graves Glen. She, her mom, and her cousin have formed a new and powerful coven; she’s running a successful witchcraft shop, Something Wicked; and she’s started mentoring some of the younger witches in town. As Halloween approaches, there’s only one problem—Llewellyn “Wells” Penhallow.
Wells has come to Graves Glen to re-establish his family’s connection to the town they founded as well as to make a new life for himself after years of being the dutiful son in Wales. When he opens up a shop of his own, Penhallow’s, just across the street from Something Wicked, he quickly learns he’s gotten more than he bargained for in going up against Gwyn.
When their professional competition leads to a very personal—and very hot—kiss, both Wells and Gwyn are determined to stay away from each other, convinced the kiss was just a magical fluke. But when a mysterious new coven of witches come to town and Gwyn’s powers begin fading, she and Wells must work together to figure out just what these new witches want and how to restore Gwyn’s magic before it’s too late.
“Ladies, what are our feelings about crystals?” she asked, but when she turned back around, none of the party was looking at her.
They were all staring at the door to the dining room or, more specifically, at the man standing in the doorway.
Gwyn couldn’t blame them. He was tall, dark hair curling over the collar of a navy wool peacoat, a neatly trimmed beard accentuating the sharp angles of his face. He was holding a large leather bag, his expression some-where between wary and baffled as he took in the scene before him, and Gwyn’s eyes narrowed. He was older, and the beard had thrown her for a second, but she knew exactly who she was looking at.
“Is he . . . a stripper?” one of the women tried to whisper, but since her bloodstream was probably about 60 percent alcohol, it might as well have been a shout.
“He doesn’t look very strippery,” someone else replied, and the man kept staring around the table, his gaze finally settling on Mel, the one bridesmaid who had decided to go the traditional route when it came to headgear and, instead of a witch’s hat, was wearing a bright pink headband, two plastic penises bobbing like antennae over her blond hair.
Gwyn watched his eyes follow those penises for a beat before he finally looked up and seemed to notice her for the first time.
The scowl deepened. “May I ask what is going on here?”
His voice was rough, his accent a slightly thicker version of Rhys’s lilting tones, deeper than it had been thirteen years ago.
Gwyn folded her arms over her chest. “Party,” she said succinctly, and just as she’d anticipated—just as she’d hoped—his posture somehow went even more rigid.
“This is the Penhallow house,” he said, shoulders going back even as his eyes once again dropped to Mel’s headband.
“It is, yeah,” she said. “But we’re using it tonight.”
The man lifted his gaze to hers again, brows drawing together. “With whose authority?” he asked, and Gwyn smirked, leaning
back against the sideboard.
“Well, first of all, ‘authority’ is not one of my favorite words, and secondly, I’m not sure that it’s really your business, but Rhys is letting us use it tonight.”
His expression cleared at the mention of his brother, but before he could say anything else, Gwyn pointed at him. “Ladies, this is Llewellyn Penhallow,” she told the bridesmaids. “Rhys’s brother. Who didn’t come to Rhys and Vivi’s wedding, I should add.”
She heard a slight gasp from the bridesmaids but didn’t look over at them as she moved closer to Llewellyn.
He was scowling now.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but there were reasons I was unable to attend the wedding.”
“As I was the maid of honor, it was extremely my business,” Gwyn countered, and Llewellyn’s brow furrowed.
“You’re Vivienne’s cousin. Gwyn.”
“The one and only,” she replied, wondering if he remembered her from Penhaven. They’d only ever seen each other that one time, and her hair had been purple back then, plus he’d seemed more interested in showing her up than anything else.
“Are we trespassing?” That was Amanda, looking a little more sober and a lot less happy than she had just a few minutes ago. Gwyn threw a dirty look at Wells.
“No,” she said, making herself smile, the perfect hostess again. “No, we have the owner’s permission to be here, this is just a . . . a family mix-up. You know how that goes. Llewellyn here is leaving, aren’t you?”
“I am not, actually, given that this is my house.”
Okay, this was getting ridiculous. The happy, silly mood of the bachelorette party was quickly dissipating, the women muttering to each other and looking between Gwyn and Wells, and she was pretty sure she could forget about any future bachelorette parties if she didn’t nip this in the bud right now.
“Let’s chat in the other room!” she said with forced brightness and then, wrapping her hand around Wells’s arm, practically dragged him out.
That wasn’t easy to do, either, given that he was surprisingly solid, but Gwyn was determined, an unstoppable force that had never given way to an immovable object.
“Look,” she said in a low voice once they were in the living room, a truly horrifying chandelier of antlers overhead. “If you don’t want us being here, take it up with Rhys later. But for now, let me talk a little astrology with these ladies, maybe teach them about moon phases, and send them on their happy and well-paying way, okay?”
Wells was staring down his nose at her, probably because that was his default expression, and now his eyes flicked past her, back toward the party. “Is this something you do often?” he asked. “Throw . . . these kinds of parties?”
He said that like he’d caught her running some kind of brothel/casino out of his family dining room, and Gwyn gritted her teeth.
“Trust me, there won’t be any more if you don’t find somewhere else in this eldritch horror you call a house to hang out
while I finish up here.”
Now it was his turn to clench his jaw. “My father built this house. Everything in it was either created with his magic or brought from our home in Wales.”
“I feel like you think that’s a flex? It is definitely not a flex.”
A trio of grooves deepened on his forehead, and then he pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.
“I was prepared for Rhys,” he muttered to himself. “How is this actually worse?”
Then, lifting his head, he fixed her with a steely gaze. “Fine,” he said. “Finish your party, and I’ll stay out of your way. But let this be the last one thrown in this house.”
With that, he turned away, heading for the stairs, and Gwyn couldn’t help but call out, “I mean, there won’t be another one while you’re visiting, but once you’re back in Wales, all bets are off!”
Pausing, Wells turned back to her. In the dim light, she realized he looked almost exactly like the portrait on the wall behind him. Take away the powdered wig, trade the breeches for a pair of dark jeans, and it could basically be the same man.
“I’m not visiting, Ms. Jones,” he said, and Gwyn doubted his aristocratic ancestor there behind him could’ve sounded frostier or that anything in this house was scarier than that pronouncement.
“I’m staying in Graves Glen. For good.”
From THE KISS CURSE by Erin Sterling, published by Avon Books. Copyright © 2022 by Rachel Hawkins. Reprinted courtesy of HarperCollinsPublishers
