Wishing for a Magical Midlife

Becoming a widow on my fortieth birthday was not what I had planned. Even worse? It's forced me and my teenage daughter back to Whispering Willows and the life of magic I left behind. I tell myself it'll be a short trip to sell my mother's shop of wishes. Until I kind of, sort of bind myself to the shop. With bills piling up fast, I gotta do something I swore I never would: open shop and start granting wishes, just until I can figure out how to undo this pesky binding spell.

I didn't expect to be a widow at forty years old. I didn't expect to be a single mother. I didn't expect to inherit a mountain of debt. And I definitely didn't expect to return to Whispering Willows—or my life as a witch. But here I am: I've reopened my mother's wish shop, started granting wishes, and am teaching my daughter magic. Life is perfect . . . Almost.

It's been five months since Clara moved back home to Whispering Willows and started practicing magic again. Now, she's taking up her heritage and granting wishes, teaching her daughter magic, and dating her sexy ex from high school. She feels settled, like she's finally found her way. Until her dad arrives. The dad her mother told her was a one-night stand. The dad who was supposedly a deadbeat. The dad she thought had died. He's very much alive, and he wants to get to know Clara.

It's not that I thought life was going to be easier now that I've settled into being forty, happily married to the man of my dreams, living my best life as a witch, but, well, okay yes, that is what I thought. Reality comes knocking the day I try to open the door to my shop and the key doesn't work. Neither does anything else: bricks to the window, my strongest spells, an actual half-giant punching in the door—nada. This magical shop has been in my family for over a hundred years. It's our legacy, what I want to pass down to my daughter.

Forty and fabulous is my motto. It's been twenty years since I escaped Whispering Willows and my humble beginnings. Now I live in LA, working my dream job as head witch at a growing corporation, getting paid the big bucks to cast spells some might find morally questionable. Life is perfect. Until the night my boyfriend surprises me with a "romantic" getaway in the middle of nowhere, and I find a shovel and rope in his trunk. Romance is truly dead.