Smoke, Mirrors and Misdemeanors

6⭐️2🌶

I've gotten exceedingly behind in my blog posting.  I had to rapid fire read several of these books to make the publication deadline so everything else went by the wayside.  Smoke, Mirrors and Misdemeanors was exceptional though and a cozy joy to read.  The MMC, Ark, is a total green flag.  Reserved, quiet, private but fiercely loyal to the scant few people he's let into his inner circle over the years.  He falls first for the FMC and falls hard.  Cassia is a Kitchen Witch, which in this realm puts her pretty low on the totem pole.  She's also the mixed daughter of two orphans, so she doesn't have a family name with clout either to help her out.  She's the caretaker of an orphanage.  One that cares for mixed blood children.  It is the orphanage her parents called home and where they met.  Cassia is a baker and owns The Witching Flour.  The profits from the bakery are what keeps the orphanage afloat.  A demon businessman has bought the property the orphanage sits on and is evicting the children.  Cassia is trying to fight it with every recourse she has.  In a last ditch effort to sway the "bad guy" she goes in person to the gentleman's club he attends.  This guy refuses her but Ark is there, witnesses the exchange and then convinces Cassia to talk with him.  He makes a deal with her; in exchange for trying to save the orphanage she just has to be his fake fiancé for the holiday season.  Ark has an overbearing matchmaking mother.  He wants to get through all his social obligations as unscathed as possible.  The rouse only needs to last about two weeks.  You can probably guess where this leads.  As they spend time together working on the mutual problems, they start getting to know eachother and the faked feelings start feeling real.  There is conflict and tension but everything gets resolved pretty easily.  This does not end on a cliffhanger and there is some really nice emotional stuff that happens that I wasn't expecting.  This was sweet, full of amazing found family, strong characters, Enola's on brand vivid world building and prose.  I loved it and am looking forward to more books in the series.  The author has said that after book two, the subsequent books will focus on different side characters.  I loved both Cassia's little circle and Ark's so I think this will be a fun series.  This is the perfect book for this time of year and today is release day so go check it out!!