February 1, 2025
Lilian ""Lily"" Estrada, who has memory magic, has prided herself on her ability to work hard and use science instead of magic to heal people. However, after a patient dies during a routine operation, she flees to her family's ancestral home in Mexico. This home is no ordinary home, but rather the enchanted Hacienda Estrada. Returning home puts Lily back into the orbit of her first love, Sam, whom she thought she would marry until the day Sam told her he didn't love her anymore. Deeply hurt, Lily closed off her heart (both figuratively and literally, with magic) so that no one else could hurt her. Seeing Sam again stirs up lots of feelings, and Lily must contend with her past before she can move forward. In her second book about the lives and loves of the Estrada family (after The Enchanted Hacienda, 2023), Cervantes has crafted a winning tale of a woman who embraces uncertainty and releases control on her road to forgiveness and healing. Readers who enjoy family drama, second-chance romances, and a touch of magic will enjoy this book.
COPYRIGHT(2025) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
February 15, 2025
At a wedding, a workaholic doctor runs into the man who got away. Lily Estrada is doing well: She has a good life in Los Angeles as chief resident at her hospital and member of a close family of women blessed by the goddess Mayahuel with flower-based magic. When something goes wrong in the operating room, though, she finds herself rushing to her family's flower farm in Mexico to deal with the feelings she always does her best to ignore. Arriving in time to help with a local wedding, she uses her memory magic to create a gift for the couple and runs into Samuel James, her childhood friend and the only man she's ever loved--the man who broke her heart 10 years ago before disappearing from her life. Between Sam's reappearance, her feelings about work, and problems with her magic that hint at bigger issues, Lily is about to fall apart, but maybe falling apart is the only way to rebuild. Cervantes returns to the world she created inThe Enchanted Hacienda (2023), a wonderful vision of a magical flower farm and the strong, passionate women it belongs to. The Estrada family continues to shine, each character independent but important, moving the plot along and giving Lily a soft spot to land. Second-chance romances must strike a balance of having the original breakup be sad but for good enough reasons that the reader isn't upset when the couple gets back together. In this case, a little more conversation between Lily and Sam would have gone a long way. The last 50 pages feel rushed but, ultimately, the writing and the characters are enough to pull this love story along. An enchanting if sometimes-frustrating tale.
COPYRIGHT(2025) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
January 27, 2025
A woman learns to open her heart again in this cozy magical romance from Cervantes (The Enchanted Hacienda). For generations, the Estrada women have been blessed with magic derived from the cultivation of enchanted flowers, but after a traumatic incident at work causes big city ob-gyn Lily Estrada to escape to her hometown of La Ventana, Mexico, for a much needed break, she discovers she can no longer smell the flowers, and therefore cannot access her powers. She slowly comes to realize that her magic has been locked due to a secret she’s kept for 10 years: after Samuel James, her first love, rejected her, she put a spell on her heart to keep herself from feeling the heartache. When Sam reenters her life, Lily realizes that confronting their shared past is the only way to regain access to her magic—even if doing so opens her up to heartbreak all over again. The solid supporting cast of Lily’s family provides ballast for a well-balanced tale of magic, perseverance, and rekindled love. Cervantes is sure to win fans with this one. Agent: Holly Root, Root Literary.