The Witch of WILDE HOUSE

Eighteen-year-old Nettie Nevers has only ever wanted one thing—a home of her own. She and her sisters have spent their lives at the mercy of their mother’s husbands, each one worse than the last. Now an up-and-coming interior designer (in large part thanks to her magic which lets her see and talk to house spirits) Nettie is on the precipice of finally being able to make her lifelong dream of buying a house for herself, her mother, and two sisters come true. She just needs to complete one last project, a high-profile redesign for the son of the city’s (once) most renowned magical scholars and infamous flirt, Junipher Wilde.

Despite recently losing his second parent in as many years to dubious magical experiments, June is exactly what she expected—aggravatingly carefree, overly familiar, and all too aware of his good looks. He’s hired Nettie to update his house so that he can sell it, completely unbothered that he’s casting aside a ten-generation-long legacy of Wildes who cared for the home and its spirit before him. And to make her job harder, his house spirit is a cantankerous old thing who has no interest in Nettie or June’s plans, and makes quick work of destroying any newly purchased furniture, curdling wallpaper, locking Nettie in rooms, and sabotaging her at every turn.

Desperate to win the spirit over so that the house can sell and she’ll get paid, Nettie follows the trail of destruction to a forbidden wing, where she uncovers a possible connection to the city-wide reports of missing people and their spirits. To her surprise, when she confronts June (who may not care as little as he would like everyone to believe), he asks for her help finding answers, and in exchange will double her commission when his house sells. But working with June comes with challenges, like ignoring his insincere advances even as a growing—unwelcome—fondness for him softens her resolve. As they trip closer to the truth of the legacy June’s parents left behind, the magic Nettie has always taken for granted hangs in the balance, and she’ll have to decide if her dream is still worth what it will cost her—and who.