Enchantra

Enchantra is a 2025 romantasy novel by New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Kaylie Smith. It is Smith’s second entry in her Wicked Games series, which follows the adventures and paranormal romances of the Grimm sisters. Phantasma, the first novel, follows necromancer Ophelia Grimm as she competes in a dangerous competition hosted by Devils while falling in love with a ghost who turns out to be the Prince of Devils, Salemaestrus. In Enchantra, Ophelia’s younger sister Genevieve travels to an Italian estate in hopes of finding a connection to magical people like herself and self-understanding. Along the way, she becomes entangled in another Devil’s game while engaging in a forced marriage and eventual romantic relationship with Rowington Silver. A third novel in the series is forthcoming. Smith is also the author of the Heartless Fates trilogy, comprising A Ruinous Fate (2023), A Reckless Oath (2024), and the forthcoming A Raging Heart. Enchantra, like much of Smith’s other work, explores themes of The Tension Between Love and Obligation, The Search for Identity and Self-Acceptance, and The Importance of Free Will.

This guide is based on the 2025 Second Sky Kindle Edition. 

Content Warning: Both the source text and this guide feature depictions and discussions of graphic violence, self-harm, animal cruelty, sexual content, illness, and death.

Plot Summary

Genevieve Grimm is traveling through Rome when a flock of crows (known as a murder) begins following her. She is in Italy because her sister Ophelia Grimm—the protagonist of the first book in the series, Phantasma—planned a trip for her. Genevieve, however, has a plan of her own. She found a letter among her mother Tessie Grimm’s things from a man named Barrington Silver, inviting Tessie to visit the Enchantra estate. Since Tessie’s death, Genevieve has felt unmoored, especially coupled with her complicated feelings of neglect stemming from Tessie’s favoring of Ophelia. Because the Grimm magic automatically goes to the eldest child, Ophelia inherited the family necromancy powers after Tessie’s death, and Tessie spent all of Ophelia’s childhood preparing Ophelia for this inheritance. Genevieve, by contrast, was left to her own devices and feels isolated and undervalued. She hopes to seek out Barrington to find a family of people like her, people who can make her feel like she belongs.

After arriving in Rome, Genevieve puts off going to Enchantra, wishing to keep to Ophelia’s itinerary and explore the city, but the murder of crows begins to follow her more closely. Genevieve realizes that the invitation was hexed and that the crows will follow her until she goes to Enchantra. She packs her trunks and leaves Rome, taking a train north to Tuscany. When she arrives, she takes a carriage to Enchantra’s location, which is cloaked by magic and invisible except for a gate by the side of the road. After eating demonberries growing beside the gate, she finds that she can see the manor house behind it. She uses her powers to pass through the gate. She wanders toward a giant hedge maze and is interrupted by a small, intelligent-looking fox. She tells the fox she has an invitation, holding it out, and the fox steals it from her and disappears in a plume of black smoke. Genevieve sees a crow fall out of the sky. As she loses consciousness, she wonders if the berries are poisonous.

Genevieve wakes outside the gates with a hazy memory before she recalls what happened. Determined, she walks through the gates again and approaches the house to knock on the door. A handsome man answers and tells her to leave. He slams the door in her face, but Genevieve uses her powers to pass through the door. The foyer is empty, but the house is ornate, if dusty and rundown. Genevieve sees several portraits of striking people, clearly related, posing with various animals. She finds a grand ballroom but is interrupted by Ellin and Sevin Silver, two of Barrington’s children. They reference a Devil named Knox and a competition called the Hunt, which confuses Genevieve. The handsome man who opened the door reappears, introducing himself as Rowin Silver. He is shocked that Genevieve is a Specter. Genevieve questions him about Knox and the Hunt, and he promises to answer her questions later. Barrington Silver appears and is surprised by Genevieve’s presence.

Barrington explains the Hunt and his family’s situation. Barrington serves as a Familiar to the Devil Knox, who grants Barrington immortality and other powers in exchange for servitude. Barrington fell in love with a demon named Vira during his service, and they had seven children together: Grave, Covin, Rowin, Remi, Sevin, Wells, and Ellin. All the children are powerful wraiths. Vira developed the Crimson Rot, a deadly disease that affects demons. In exchange for a temporary fix each year, Knox tricked Barrington into entering his children into the Hunt, a competition in which they must fight to the death while audiences from Hell watch through the mirrors in the house. Barrington thought it would be a one-time event, but Knox’s bargain made it yearly. The winner of the Hunt gets a year of freedom, while all the other siblings must serve Knox in Hell before being returned to their lives on Earth. Rowin has won for the last 15 years, during which he has used his free time to seek a cure to save his mother and free his other siblings from the Hunt.

Knox will kill Genevieve for trespassing during the Hunt, but Barrington has a solution: Knox has offered to allow any of the Silver siblings to compete on a team with any spouse they marry. If they win with their spouse, both are freed from the Hunt forever. Barrington suggests that Genevieve and Rowin get married, as Barrington wants to save Genevieve from Knox’s wrath and Rowin wants the opportunity for eternal freedom. Genevieve doesn’t want to marry a man she’s just met, but Barrington and Rowin make it clear that she has no choice. She takes a moment to compose herself in the bathroom, but Knox appears to her in the mirror, pulling her through the glass into a strange mirror dimension where he threatens her before clones of the Silver siblings try to attack her. Genevieve makes it back through the mirror and tries to escape Enchantra, but the gates burn her when she tries to pass through. The sensation of burning reminds her of her ex-lover Farrow Henry, a wealthy boy from New Orleans who courted Genevieve before breaking her heart, claiming he couldn’t marry a girl from a paranormal family despite promising her a future. Rowin finds Genevieve and carries her back to the house to prepare for their wedding.

Genevieve begrudgingly lets Ellin and Sevin help her get ready for the wedding. Once she’s dressed in her ornate gown and the wedding ceremony is set up outside in the garden, Sevin walks her down the aisle. Barrington officiates the wedding as Rowin and Genevieve make vows to love and cherish each other for eternity. Genevieve is upset by the promise of forever, but Rowin tells her that nothing is eternal, even if she wishes it were. For a wedding ring, Rowin gives her a signet ring that turns hot whenever a dangerous person is around. They kiss passionately, and Knox arrives. Rowin walks her back up the aisle before she faints.

Genevieve wakes in the drawing room, where she hears the Silver siblings discussing her marriage and the role she’ll play in the Hunt. Rowin calls her a useful tool and nothing more. He returns to tell her that she likely fainted because Knox shut down her magic (since use of powers is not allowed during the rounds of the Hunt) and linked her life to Rowin’s, causing her system to overload. Rowin takes her to his room, and they go to sleep, though they are careful not to touch each other.

The next day, Genevieve wears a gown and matching hare mask to the masquerade ball that kicks off the Hunt. Spectators from Hell fill the house. One man named Cedric threatens her, but she pushes past him. Genevieve briefly discusses her mother with Barrington, who admits they were close friends until Tessie entered Phantasma for the first time. Genevieve shows him the photo she has of Barrington and Tessie, and Barrington explains that the matching necklaces they wear are Soul Locks. 

At midnight, the first round of the Hunt begins. Grave is chosen to hunt first, and he selects Roaming Rooms as his game, in which the other players must hide from him in different rooms but are forced to change rooms every several hours. Rowin finds her, and they hide together in Grave’s room. To pass the time, they play two truths and a lie, though Rowin refuses to answer questions about his mother. When they have to move rooms, they hide in a secret room above the library. They then move to the kitchen, where they hide in a dumbwaiter as Grave brutally kills Wells. Grave tries to kill them, but they fight him off until the end of the round, though Genevieve is badly injured after Grave stabs her in the shoulder.

Ellin heals Genevieve in exchange for Rowin promising not to kill her when he’s Hunter if he can avoid it. Knox finds Genevieve and tells her that she can win Favored, a title that earns her a boon from Knox’s treasure trove, if she and Rowin put on a steamy display for the viewers. Before the second round, Grave tries to kill Genevieve during the safe hours in violation of the rules, but she manages to project her Specter powers out to stop him from stabbing her. In round two of the Hunt, Rowin’s identical twin Remi selects Random Starts for his game. The players are transported to random rooms of the mansion. Genevieve finds Rowin, but she realizes it’s Remi impersonating him. She escapes Remi and gets to the secret room.

Rowin finds Genevieve and takes her to an enchanted room, one of the vacant rooms that Knox turns into various natural environments. The room is a peaceful meadow, and Genevieve and Rowin find a stream that Rowin thinks is a puzzle that could grant them an immunity token. While he tries to figure it out, he asks Genevieve about Farrow. She tells him about how Farrow broke her heart and lied to her before revealing her revenge: She lured Farrow to find her having sex with his friend Basile in a Mardis Gras float. Angered, Farrow called her a demon and lit the float on fire, badly burning her and Basile. Genevieve feels horrible guilt for hurting Basile, but Rowin assures her that it’s not her fault.

Rowin solves the puzzle in the stream, and Genevieve is badly injured trying to retrieve the immunity token the puzzle grants. Rowin gives the token to Ellin in exchange for healing Genevieve. Rowin and Genevieve are nearly intimate before Genevieve decides they can only be intimate for the audience in order to win Favored. The Silver family celebrates Genevieve’s birthday with a feast.

In round three, Sevin is the hunter, and he chooses Solitary Confinement for his game. The players must pick a room and stay in it, so Rowin takes Genevieve to an enchanted room that’s a forest made of trees and mirrors. Rowin and Genevieve have sex before Sevin finds them. Genevieve runs and finds a strange mirror. She runs into the mirror and fights a monster to get an immunity token, though her face is badly lacerated. Rowin heals her imperfectly, leaving a scar. To console her, Rowin takes her to Hell to meet his mother Vira, who is very sick. Sevin is killed by Covin and appears in Knox’s house in agony. Genevieve comforts him before Knox takes her to his treasure trove. He will allow her to select her prize from the trove if she wins Favored, but she will forget her time in the trove. She chooses a Soul Lock, though Knox offers her the cure for Crimson Rot in exchange for convincing Salem, the Prince of Devils and Ophelia’s partner, to return to Hell to his father, the King. Genevieve refuses to betray her sister. She tries to remember the cure’s existence as she leaves the trove, but Knox takes her memories.

Rowin seems odd when he and Genevieve return to Enchantra. In round three, Ellin serves as Hunter, choosing a game that requires people to hide with anyone they come across. Rowin and Genevieve hide together after an argument in which Rowin reveals that Knox offered him freedom in exchange for betraying Genevieve, which he rejected because of his feelings for Genevieve. They have sex before being interrupted by Covin, who hides with them. Ellin finds them and kills Covin before the round ends. Genevieve goes to bed, but she wakes to Grave again trying to kill her. Knox told Grave that if Genevieve and Rowin win, they will be free forever, but the rest of the Silver siblings will never be free again, forced to compete in the Hunt without the prize of a year of freedom. Rowin and Ellin stop Grave from killing Genevieve.

In round five, Rowin and Genevieve are the hunters. Ellin tells Rowin to do what they agreed on, and Rowin kills her quickly. Knox is upset at the lack of spectacle, but Rowin and Grave promise an epic final showdown. In the final round, Knox awards Genevive the Soul Lock she selected for winning Favored. He then announces new rules for the final round: If either Grave or Rowin kills Genevieve, the Silver siblings will be freed from the Hunt forever. They can use the Hunting Knife or their powers. Genevieve runs as Grave and Rowin pursue her into the maze. Rowin pins Genevieve against the hedge, and they enact the plan they previously hatched with Grave: Grave uses his magic to freeze Knox while Rowin stabs Genevieve, capturing her soul inside the Soul Lock.

Genevieve wakes up in Grimm Manor with no memories beyond arriving at the gates of Enchantra. Salem explains that she died and that two men brought her body and her soul in a Soul Lock back to him. He was able to bring her back to life at the cost of the memories of a person she loves. Genevieve cannot remember who she’s forgotten, but she receives letters from Rowin explaining the events of Enchantra and their relationship. Ophelia and Salem are glad Genevieve is back, but Genevieve feels longing for her lost memories. After two months, Genevieve runs into a handsome man in a bakery who asks her if a ring on the ground is hers. Genevieve doesn’t think it is, but she feels compelled to take it anyway. Two weeks after she takes the ring, she puts it on, and her memories of Rowin return. She runs into New Orleans and finds Rowin, who promises to be with her forever. He traded his immortality to the King of Devils in exchange for Genevieve’s memories returning to her. Later, Genevieve and her friend Luci prepare for the arrival of Rowin, Sevin, and Grave, who are traveling to search for a cure for Crimson Rot now that the Hunt is forever over.