I went into Meet Cute Magic knowing Morgan Elizabeth was a new-to-me author and that there was a family curse involved. That was enough to get my attention. Then I discovered there was also a summoned spirit, a grumpy business owner next door, and a magical quest that required gathering some rather interesting ingredients. At that point, I was ready to see exactly where Rosie was going to take me.
Meet Cute Magic by Morgan Elizabeth
Series: Heartwood Hollow #1
Genres: Paranormal Romance
About the Book:

A cozy cute enemies-to-lovers witchy fantasy for readers of Sydney J. Shields' The Honey Witch and Sarah Beth Durst's The Spellshop.

She's a witch who can’t fall in love without getting her heart broken. He holds a grudge like no other.

Bookstore owner Rosie Mayfield wants a love of her own, but it’s not meant to be––because of her family's curse. To break it, she conjures a ghost who will break her curse, but for a cost––she has to brew a potion to help him transition to the other side. The problem? There’s only one person who hates Rosie in all of Heartwood Hollow, and she needs his help to complete the required task.

Jack Haggerty, the ghost’s grandson, has lamented about Rosie for years––she’s a disaster and she’s forbidden from visiting his gaming shop. He doesn’t believe in ghosts, so he’s stunned when his beloved grandfather makes an appearance. While he loves his family and will do anything to help his grandpa, he fights against the chemistry brewing between him and Rosie until he can’t anymore. But he doesn’t know how to tell her he no longer wants to go through with the plan, and she won’t admit that she’s falling for him because they’re doomed from the start.

Tropes:☀️ Grumpy × Sunshine 🔥 Dislike to Lovers 🤝 Forced Proximity ✨ Shared Magical Bond 🏡 Small-Town Magic 🔮 Curse Breaking

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I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

This was my first Morgan Elizabeth book, and Rosie had me from the beginning. This woman is convinced her family is cursed when it comes to love, and considering her own relationship history, she has plenty of evidence to support the theory. Instead of accepting that she’s doomed to repeat the same pattern forever, she decides she’s going to do something about it.

Naturally, that means summoning the spirit of the man she believes cursed her grandmother. Rosie summons Phillip so she can ask him to remove the curse, which leads to a list of ingredients she needs to gather to break it. Somewhere along the way, Jack, the business owner next door, gets pulled into her plans. He also happens to be Phillip’s grandson, although Jack has absolutely no clue what Rosie is getting him into.

I loved Rosie. She’s carefree, a little wild, and completely committed once she decides she’s doing something. Watching her drag Jack along on this magical quest was hilarious because she knows exactly why they’re doing these strange things while poor Jack is trying to make sense of what is happening around him.

Jack was such a good match for her. He’s grumpy, nerdy, and initially so far outside Rosie’s magical world that watching the two of them together gave me some of my favorite moments. Rosie brings all this chaos into his life, and somehow he keeps going along with her.

Then Jack gets flirty. Excuse me, sir. Where did THAT come from?

I was perfectly happy with cute, nerdy, grumpy Jack. Then he apparently decided he’d been adorable long enough and flipped some internal switch. The chemistry between these two goes from fun banter to something much hotter, and I was not prepared for it.

The kissing bond was one of my favorite scenes. They have to kiss to verify their connection, which is an extremely convenient magical requirement if you ask me. Neither one of them exactly needed much encouragement by that point, but apparently magic decided they needed a little push anyway. I loved watching everything they’d been dancing around finally come bubbling to the surface.

As much as I laughed through this book, the curse itself ended up having more emotional weight than I expected. Once I understood more about Phillip, Rosie’s grandmother, and what had actually happened, things weren’t nearly as simple as breaking a curse and sending everyone on their way. I felt for the people involved, even when their choices had caused pain.

And that ending GOT ME. I thought I knew where everything was going. I was happily following Rosie and Jack around, enjoying their banter and waiting to see how Morgan Elizabeth would wrap up the curse. Then suddenly I was staring at the page because I had not seen that coming.

Apparently my introduction to Morgan Elizabeth involved a family curse, ghostly interference, magical kissing requirements, one very sexy nerd, and an ending that completely fooled me. I’m perfectly fine with that.