the magic of soul mates

Sirena Caraway is struggling. She is a kitchen witch and a masterful chef, but her kitchen alchemy is gone. She just bumps into things, starts fires, and makes food lacking in flavor. She feels lost, so she heads back home to Freya Grove, New Jersey. She gets back in time to enjoy some of the pumpkin spice of October, but after a botched job interview and an embarrassing Halloween, Sirena just wants a do-over.

She goes to the tea cabinet and finds a Wish Tea that her sister concocted, and she decides to make herself a cup. She wishes for another chance. And when she wakes up the next morning, she finds that October has reset itself, and Sirena has the whole month to figure out how to get her magic back and try that job interview again.

Gus Dearworth finds himself back in Freya Grove also. Taking a break from his family’s magic show. He’s a gifted magician, but his marriage just ended very publicly, and he needed some time to heal. So he moved back home and took a temporary job with the Historical Society. And when he bumps into Sirena, who he knew from high school, he had an idea.

The Historical Society had some cookbooks that needed someone with expertise to look them over and give them some love. Sirena agrees to take a look at them, and she is bewitched by the old recipes from the witchy cooks who wrote the books. She spends some of her free time at the Historical Society reading over the old cookbooks and wanting to try out some of the recipes. But she also wants to do something she hasn’t done in a long time. Sirena wants to have some fun. She decides to spend some of her second October enjoying the spooky season, spending time with her sisters, and savoring the town’s autumn activities.

But spending time with Gus is quickly becoming one of Sirena’s favorite things. She can’t deny her growing feelings for him, and he seems to feel the same. But what’s going to happen when her time travel wish is over, and November starts up like normal? Will it make a difference that she wished for a rewind, or will she be able to go on as usual, moving towards her dreams, and towards Gus?

Deja Brew is Celestine Martin’s third book in her Elemental Love series, each book about one of the Caraway sisters. Each book works as a stand-alone, but it’s easy to fall for these sisters, so one book from the series may not be enough. This one combines some entertaining supernatural elements with a good, old-fashioned second chance love story. How else can you have someone get lost in a corn maze, because a magic spell made it impossible for her to get out without some magic of her own (or of her boyfriend’s own)?

I listened to Deja Brew on audio, and I thought it was charming. Told in alternating viewpoints and narrated by both Marissa Hampton and Christopher Hampton, the audio book offers these characters’ journeys with warmth and joy. I thought both narrators did a good job of bringing this world to life, and bringing these two people to the love they were seeking.

I enjoyed Deja Brew a lot. I hadn’t read the other two books in this series, but I will go back because I liked this universe so much. This one does get pretty spicy from time to time, but that’s well balanced with smart writing and engaging characters. This is a great read for fall, or for any time of year that you’re missing spooky season.

Egalleys for Deja Brew were provided by Forever, and a copy of the audio book was provided by Hachette Audio, both through NetGalley, with many thanks.