The Book Witch - Meg Shaffer - ★

AUTHOR: Meg Shaffer

GENRE: Fantasy-Romance

PUBLICATION DATE: April 7, 2026

RATING: 1 star.

In a Nutshell: A book-about-books fantasy featuring the titular book witch. After the super-interesting start, this absolutely didn’t go the way I expected it to. Too much of insta-love. OTT dialogues, absurd plot twists, and immature characters. I enjoyed this author’s first two novels but simply couldn’t connect with this one. This is an outlier review.

Plot Preview:

Despite her youth, twenty-five-year-old Rainy March has been a book witch for more than a decade. She follows all the rules of the profession seriously, including the one about ensuring that fictional characters and the real world do not intersect. But when she is sent on assignment into the book series starring the Duke of Chicago, her favourite book character, she forgets all the rules and ends up in a relationship with him. When this is discovered by the head witch, Rainy is forbidden from interacting with the fictional character on the threat of expulsion from the coven. But two years later, when Rainy faces a life-changing mystery, she can think of no one other than the Duke to help her out. Their secret quest takes them through several book classics, but can they resolve the mystery without Rainy being penalised?

The story comes to us mostly in Rainy’s first-person perspective.

I had enjoyed reading Meg Shafer’s first two novels ‘The Wishing Game’ and ‘The Lost Story’. So when I saw this title on NetGalley, I didn’t hesitate even for a moment before requesting it. It helped that the title was also intriguing (Book + Witch = awesome combo!) and the cover art had so many adorable elements, including the black cat. Sadly, the novel came nowhere near my expectations. The writing, the plot development, and the characters all felt very immature, so much so that I still cannot accept this came from the same pen.

Bookish Yays:

📚 The idea of dividing the novel into six genre-based sections and sticking to that labelled genre for each section. Very clever!

Bookish Okays:

🐱‍👤 Koshka the cat, who is also Rainy’s familiar. The Okay isn't for Koshka; how can a cat be anything but Yay, right? The Okay is because Koshka barely has anything to do in the whole story despite being present for most of it. A wasted opportunity, this.

🐱‍👤 The stress on the importance of books and of reading and of their impact on ordinary humans. No bibliophile would ever disagree with such valid points. But why keep harping on the same topic again and again and again? Those who reads books hardly support book banning and burning, so this is like preaching to the choir repetitively.

🐱‍👤 The references to all the classics and the encounters with some popular fictional characters. Not explored as much as I would have preferred, but I still liked much of what was there. Except perhaps for the spoilers – wish there had been some control on the leaked details – and for the appearance of Elizabeth Bennet, whose personality didn’t seem to match her P&P avatar at all. Also, if you don’t know the plots of the classics mentioned, I don’t know if you will be able to appreciate these scenes completely.

Bookish Nays:

☂ Rainy March. Says one thing, does something else. Her immediate breaking of all the book witch rules instigated a major eye-roll. She would have been a much better fit in a YA-Fantasy novel.

☂ The Duke. Ugh! There’s slick and there’s greasy, and this fella is just full of grease. He seems to see Rainy only for her looks. Most of his observations are connected to her appearance.

☂ The secondary characters are all flat. All including the main characters sound younger than their fictional age. The villain is just a caricature.

☂ The plot. Minimal for the most part, with the story turning into any random direction depending on the character’s latest action.

☂ The extra-cheesy ultra-saccharine insta-love between Rainy and the Duke. Sheesh! I anyway don’t enjoy the insta-love trope, but this particular insta-relationship tested my patience to its limits. There’s barely any chemistry between the duo, and the Duke’s “love” felt more like obsession. I was also fed up of the number of references to kisses and physical looks – more indicative of lust than love if you ask me.

☂ The myriad twists. I guessed all of them well in advance. ☹ Some weren’t even convincing!

☂ The book witch concept. It had so much potential, but because of the approach chosen, it doesn’t work. The book magic rules are randomly generated, appended to the plot when the need arises with prosaic phrases such as “Like all book witches, she could…” The same is valid for the powers/rights that the fictional characters in the book have.

☂ The awkward pacing. Usually books are a bit slower at the start to build the world and the characters properly. But this one is contrary: it is extra-rushed at the beginning. The relationship begins within barely 10-15 pages.

☂ The quote “All stories are love stories if you love stories.” I was so fed up of reading this meaningless line. The parting note mentions that it is inspired by a similar quote from a comedian. Well, that quote made sense; this one doesn’t!

☂ The vibe of the book. Artificial, with too much fake telling. Like, it’s deliberately trying to be cozy with the forced inclusion of cozy elements instead of offering natural cosiness. It is also bizarre in its humour, adding jokes in situations where nothing funny is warranted. There are also random inclusions of trivia that’s only thinly connected to the plot, almost like someone didn’t want their Google results to go to waste.

☂ The second half is meta-meta-meta like a fever dream. By the time the final section came, I lost all my interest in comprehending the situation. The ending was perfect for this ad-hoc plot development, which means it didn’t work for me at all.

Overall, this is a case of ‘great idea, pathetic execution.’ There was a lot of potential in the concept. But the resultant plot is more like a poorly-written YA romantic mystery than a witchy fantasy meant for adults. This issue partly reminded me of Kate Quinn’s ‘The Astral Library’, yet another book-about-books with great potential but below-average execution.

I am utterly disappointed. This had been one of my most anticipated reads of 2026 and hence I simply wasn’t prepared for such a dud experience. There is one common point across the three books: the references to the classics and a journey into the book world (literally or figuratively.) But this plot probably got too unwieldy. I will still read the author’s next, but my expectations will be much lower.

That said, mine is very much an outlier review. Of the author’s three books, this has the highest rating on GR as of today. So perhaps it does have its merits and I simply couldn’t see them. Do read the other reviews and take a better call on this work.

Recommended to those who seek entertainment without applying much logic. Better if you are a YA who loves romantic fantasy.

My thanks to Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine for providing the DRC of “The Book Witch” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn’t work better for me.