Maggie and Arthur’s Magic Moment by Leslie René

Tracy’s Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Series: Standalone (?)

Release Date: July 28, 2026

Dr. Magnolia “Maggie” Linden along with her best friend and fellow professor, Dr. Dahlia Hawberry goes to the Beltane Night celebration at nearby Brigs Beach. She had gone to the bonfire every year since she moved to Galloway and began teaching Linguistics & Incantation Translation at Hawthorn College, so she was expecting a night of dancing, drinking and fun – she never imagined she might meet someone while wearing an enchanted mask, but she does and has a magical night that ended with an amazing kiss with a man that thanks to the mask, she won’t remember and who’s name she doesn’t know. She tries to forget him, but can’t and Dahlia is determined to help her find him – but does she want to find him?

Before she can give too much thought about her mystery man, a bigger problem occurs, thanks to the college’s resident celebrity professor – Dr. Arthur Taliesin, the lead alchemist & director of labs at the college. A man she despites for cutting her budget and for being annoyingly handsome. Arthur was demonstrating a complicated spell to his students when he was distracted and the spell went awry, causing a magical pall to open on the third floor of the building. A pall that should have been easy enough to reverse, but for whatever reason is resistant to the dissipation spell. To make matters worse, the professors will now have to share offices, and Maggie learns that she will have to share hers with Arthur! They agree to work together to dissipate the pall, which leads to friendship and then more. But Maggie has been burned before and even though Arthur is nothing like her ex – she can’t risk her heart again.

What a fun read, Maggie and Arthur are such wonderful characters, and I felt their chemistry right away. I also enjoyed the magic system in this book, it was a bit more subtle than some of the books I have been reading lately, but it was definitely easier to understand. I appreciate that the author provided readers with a glossary of magical terms used throughout the book, making understanding the magic even easier. This book has a mashup of tropes – enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity, secret identity, and temporary/conditional relationship. Mixing those tropes leads to this book offering readers an interesting magic system, amazing secondary characters, steamyish love scenes, witty banter, a bit of heartache, emotional healing, a pinch of spookiness, and the promise of happily ever after. The only thing that kept this from being a 5-star read for me was that I did feel that Maggie held on to her past a little too long and tended to make unfair assumptions about Arthur, but she does grow as a character and despite her flaws, I loved her! This book is so well written and flows so nicely that I was genuinely surprised to learn that this was a debut novel, and I hope this author has more stories to share!

4.5 stars

*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an eARC that I requested and was provided to me by the publisher/author. All opinions in this review are my own. *

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