Review: Bitter Spirits

BITTER SPIRITS
Roaring Twenties #1
Jenn Bennett
Paranormal Historical Romance
317 pages
Berkley Sensation
Available Now
Source: Finished copy from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Aida Palmer performs a spirit medium show onstage at Chinatown’s illustrious Gris-Gris speakeasy. However, her ability to summon (and expel) the dead is more than just an act.

Winter Magnusson is a notorious bootlegger who’s more comfortable with guns than ghosts—unfortunately for him, he’s the recent target of a malevolent hex that renders him a magnet for hauntings. After Aida’s supernatural assistance is enlisted to banish the ghosts, her spirit-chilled aura heats up as the charming bootlegger casts a different sort of spell on her.

On the hunt for the curseworker responsible for the hex, Aida and Winter become drunk on passion. And the closer they become, the more they realize they have ghosts of their own to exorcise…

MY THOUGHTS

Bitter Spirits is a strong start to a new series, Ms. Bennett delighting not only with witty, sensible characters but also with a time period not as frequently seen in historical romances, the combination of which ensures we're held riveted from page one to three hundred. We're immediately tossed into the thick of things when Aida's services as a medium are required to help a strapping, scarred bootlegger rid himself of an unwanted spiritual companion, and from that moment on we find ourselves equally entranced by both the progression of their relationship and the slow unraveling of a perfectly complex mystery. With some mysteries we're meant to know the culprit from the beginning, the joy of it then coming from figuring out the why rather than the who, but with Bitter Spirits we're made to guess the identity of Winter's malevolent magic wielder, and attempt to guess we do.

Aida is a woman easy to like from the beginning, her tension-filled banter with Winter bringing a smile to our faces and the flutter of butterflies to our stomachs. She proves herself throughout to be someone who thinks before she acts but blessedly doesn't overthink, finding happiness with Winter after a nice build without questioning her every reaction. She admits her attraction to him with little hesitation, never one to play coy but also never one to pretend to be more than she is either, admitting her limited relationship experience upfront just like she owns up to everything else about herself. She's not the type of person we have to worry about hiding something monumental that will eventually cause an irreparable rift between her and Winter, and when she learns a few things about Winter (because he's not quite as forthright as she is) she deals with any hurt or jealousy with relatively little fanfare, taking time to sort through it while being honest with Winter about how what's she's learned has made her feel.

Winter, while more guarded than Aida, isn't one to intentionally withhold information either, and the two of them tend to have small disagreements that feel genuine for two people trying to get to know one another rather than epic blowouts with lots of drama and angst. He wants to help Aida make her way in this world given she has no family and is on her own to make a living, but he never attempts to exert his not inconsiderable will, instead fully understanding how important her independence is to her. They each have baggage they bring into the relationship, and while they have brief moments where said baggage temporarily blinds them to the truth of the situation, neither of them is too stubborn to take a step back and reevaluate to see if there's perhaps something they've missed while their focus was solely on the extent of their own hang-ups.

Overall, Bitter Spirits is successful on a variety of levels, romance and mystery blending seamlessly to give us a well-rounded story rich with characters who have us loving every moment we get to spend with them. The next book moves from Aida and Winter to Winter's brother Lowe, and I can't help but hope there's a book for Winter's sister Astrid in the works as well, as the entire Magnusson clan is a group who will never fail to keep life interesting.

Rating: 4/5

*Update: I wrote this before I knew there was in fact going to be a book for Winter's sister, so YAY!

  

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This book was sent to me by the publisher free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.