Charm

Introduction

Charm was written by Tracy Wolff and published on November 8th, 2022, by Entangled Publishing company. This was another decently long wait after the publication of Court, and it became the fifth installment of the Crave series. Despite its place in the reading order, its story is second in the timeline, making for a very interesting read. As usual, the Spoiler-Free Thoughts section will not contain events specific to this book, but there will be direct references to the previous four books in the series. The Thoughts section will contain my opinions specific to this installment. If you want to share your own ideas in the comments of these posts or in my DMs, I would love to have a conversation about this series.

If you want to keep up with Tracy Wolff and the rest of her work, visit her website https://tracywolffauthor.com and follow her on Instagram @tracywolffbooks.

Plot

After several books of waiting, we finally get to see what exactly happened to Grace and Hudson during the four months they were trapped inside of her head.

Spoiler-Free Thoughts

I have been waiting for this book since Crush, so as soon as I finished Court, I had this book in my hand. We already know at this point that they end up together, and of course it was a slow burn, enemies to lovers on both sides, forced proximity situation, meaning this had all of my favorite elements of a romance book. There was a bit of miscommunication - or at least avoidance of feelings and hard conversations - in this book, but that is relatively normal for enemies to lovers storylines.

This was told through both points of view, Grace’s and Hudson’s, and I found both the perspectives and this book’s placement in the timeline very interesting. We have spent several books waiting for this story to come out in full, and now, several books later, it has. This uniquely allows us to use future events to reflect on the present we read in this installment. That makes it interesting to see what Grace and Hudson expect of their return and how that influences their willingness to go back. I would actually be interested in a reread - for several reasons - in part to go back and read this book second as opposed to fifth and see how that changes the reading experience.

I was waiting for a flashback that would delve into what happened while Grace and Hudson were trapped, so imagine my delight when I got an entire book about it. I was so eager to start this book, and it did not disappoint. While it wasn’t my favorite, it was a very close second, and I gave this one a 9/10.

Thoughts

I thought that this was a great enemies to lovers story. While I have seen other books have a more pure form of the trope - as in they love each other and they hate that they love each other - I felt like the slow burn into an angry love confession was well done, if pretty standard. I did enjoy their banter, and the pranks in particular had me laughing because, for all of their bickering, they had it in them to be genuinely peaceful with one another. And both had valid points as to why they didn’t appreciate the other’s company.

As mentioned above, I really enjoyed the dual point of view and how the hindsight played into the reading experience. Hudson didn’t want to go back for multiple reasons, all of them very understandable. We know that he has people in the future who love and care about him, but past Hudson doesn’t think that’s possible. We also know why he hates his powers, and he doesn’t have them in Noromar, so of course he wouldn’t want to return to Katmere and have that burden put back onto him. This was a chance for him to escape. Grace had no reason not to go back. Her family, friends, mate, and a new life all waited for her back at Katmere. It was a point of contention that they worked hard to get through, which made her forgetting it all when they returned much more tragic.