Small Town, Big Magic

This romantic fantasy novel, the first in a series, follows Emerson Wilde, the youngest-ever chamber of commerce president in St. Cyprian, Missouri, and owner of the independent bookstore Confluence Books. Emerson is devoted to her small town, which sits at a confluence of rivers. She lives in Wilde House, a centuries-old family home, with her best friend Georgie Pendell, a historian who works at the local museum. Emerson's parents relocated to Europe, her sister Rebekah vanished after high school, and her grandmother, who ran the bookstore before her, died a few years later.

Emerson traces her lineage to Sarah Emerson Wilde, hanged during the Salem witch trials, whom she regards as a feminist hero rather than an actual witch. She channels Sarah's spirit into an expanded Redbud Festival showcasing the Draconian Redbud trees unique to the area, expecting resistance from Skip Simon, the town's mayor, whose powerful mother, Carol Simon, secured his election. Emerson convenes her close friends to strategize: her cousin Zander Rivers, a ferryman; Ellowyn Good, a tea shop owner; and Jacob North, a farmer whom Emerson finds privately attractive.

Skip rejects their overture and, the morning before the festival, lures Emerson to the cemetery across the river by claiming the redbud trees have been damaged. She goes alone and finds them hacked to pieces. As she confronts Skip by phone, an unnatural darkness descends. Creatures with muscular dog bodies and grotesque human faces emerge from black fog and charge at her.

A giant deer with glowing golden antlers appears, and Jacob lands before Emerson wielding a sword of light. He draws a protective circle and battles the monsters, sustaining wounds that heal instantly. Convinced she is dreaming, Emerson steps outside the circle and touches blood from Jacob's arm. It turns gold on her fingertips, and something awakens inside her. When one creature lunges, she holds out her palms and destroys every creature in a single blast.

Her friends transport Emerson to Jacob's farmhouse, where Jacob reveals the truth. St. Cyprian is a haven for witches living hidden among humans since the Salem witch trials. All witches train in magic for 18 years, then face a test called the pubertatum. Those who fail are labeled "spell dim" and given two choices: exile or a memory wipe called an obliviscor. Rebekah chose exile. Emerson refused both options, but the Joywood, the ruling coven led by Carol Simon, performed an unauthorized mind wipe. Jacob tried to stop it and failed.

Her friends prove the claims by conjuring fire, and Emerson resolves to own her new identity. They suspect Skip, also a witch, sent the creatures, which Jacob identifies as adlets, beings tied to magical imbalance. They cannot report anything without exposing Emerson's power. Georgie teaches her a glamour to hide her now-gold eyes. Ellowyn reveals she is cursed with an inability to lie. She tells Emerson that a witch who killed adlets instinctively is almost certainly a Warrior, a combat-oriented designation.

The festival succeeds. At an Ostara spring equinox celebration on Jacob's farm, Emerson meets her familiar, or magical animal companion: a large wolf-like dog named Cassie, whom Jacob secretly saved from the Joywood. During the ritual, Ellowyn has an agonizing vision of Skip bartering his soul for dark magic, accompanied by images of catastrophic flooding that Georgie links to ancient witch lore.

Skip changes tactics, befriending Emerson and mentioning Nicholas Frost, whom her friends identify as an immortal Praeceptor, or witch teacher, who helped found St. Cyprian but now lives as a recluse. Despite warnings, Emerson visits Frost. He gives her an ancient book before magically depositing her in Jacob's field. Jacob is furious, warning that Frost could report them to the Joywood. Emerson breaks down in tears, realizing she has endangered her friends. As their emotions run high, Jacob kisses her. His healing power fights Carol's obliviscor inside Emerson's mind, and she recovers fragments of memory, including conspiring with Jacob as teenagers to start a rival coven.

Skip secretly brands Emerson with dark magic during a chance encounter. When the group attempts a ritual with Frost's book, Emerson is pulled into a dark vision, repelled only by her grandmother's charm necklace, which Jacob had been safeguarding. The book reveals she is a Confluence Warrior, a rare witch whose power activates alongside a conduit, someone whose magic complements hers. Jacob served as her conduit during the adlet fight. He removes Skip's brand and explains that "conduit" also means soul mate.

Their relationship deepens. They make love for the first time during a rainstorm at Jacob's farm. That night, Emerson sleepwalks to the cemetery, where she has a vision of her grandmother telling her and Rebekah, "You are our hope." She also recognizes recurring childhood dreams in which she enters the confluence itself. When Emerson later touches the Frost book while wearing her grandmother's bluebell charm and Zander's three-rivers pendant, the charms unlock a hidden page containing a ritual to stop a dark-magic flood. The group realizes Emerson's grandmother embedded the key across objects entrusted to different allies.

Jacob warns that Carol will sense the obliviscor dissolving and could mind wipe them all at the next full moon, giving them two weeks. During a dinner with Skip, Emerson learns he knows about her power when he lets slip that her coven "isn't complete." After Skip traps her on her porch with dark magic, Jacob intervenes. He tells her he loves her. She admits the same, and the confession shatters the obliviscor entirely, restoring all her memories. They identify the missing coven roles: a Praeceptor and a Diviner, a witch gifted in prophecy. Georgie suggests Frost and Rebekah.

Both refuse. Ellowyn summons Rebekah, who tells Emerson to fix the town herself. Frost claims indifference. Skip ambushes Emerson outside Frost's house, attacking with dark magic. She fights him until her friends break through his barrier, then runs him through with Jacob's sword. Skip collapses into a weasel, his true animal form. Frost takes custody and warns, "The war is another matter."

The dark magic in the confluence continues expanding, confirming Skip was a symptom, not the source. Carol visits the bookstore, and Emerson, guided by her grandmother's spirit, disguises her restored mind behind a false obliviscor fog. Carol performs a hypnotic spell, and Emerson endures it without fighting, recognizing that revealing herself would endanger everyone.

On the full moon, the group gathers at the cemetery. Frost arrives with Rebekah, whom he has transported by force. She agrees to help for Emerson's sake. The full coven of seven sends a column of light against the darkness, but the forces reach a stalemate. Emerson announces she must enter the confluence, fulfilling her recurring childhood dreams. She dives into the water, where the darkness attacks her psychologically, insisting she has always been alone and that her death is the only answer. Cassie breaks through, reminding Emerson she was never alone. Drawing on her coven's power, Emerson swims to the source of the dark magic and crushes it. The rivers clear.

Spent, Emerson sinks. Her coven pulls her out, and Jacob pours his remaining power into her. She revives. Rebekah departs to avoid Joywood retribution, and Frost seals himself away. At Jacob's farmhouse, Jacob proposes with a ring made generations ago by a Healer ancestor for a Warrior he found injured in the forest. Emerson says yes. Minutes later, the Joywood arrive in a blinding blast of light, seven figures arrayed between the house and the rivers. Emerson resolves to face them.