Publication Date: March 10, 2026
When a magical hotel appears smack-dab in the middle of the most unmagical of worlds, the last thing the residents expect is to fall in love.
Manager of the Number Five Wayside Inn and World Travel Hub, Pax Nomen has one of the easiest jobs in all the known universes, unless you count the occasional plumbing disaster. When Number Five Wayside gets stranded on a non-magical world, even Pax’s trusty Wayside Handbook can’t help him. How is he going to “reboot” the hotel and keep it on its magical journey?
Josie LaChusia is a single mom experiencing debt, having parenting doubts, and tipping dangerously toward depression when an ad pops up on her phone that an apartment is available in a building she’s never seen before.
Pax needs a new guest to restart his hotel, and Josie needs a nudge to restart her life. In a building occupied by faeries, gargoyles, and a gnome with a bad attitude, two souls from very different places come together to create a home like no other.
Magic and Mischief at the Wayside Hotel by Elizabeth Everett is filled with magic and mischief galore and so much more. What happens when humans meet up with other worldly beings and live side by side?
Single mother Josie and her young son, Amos, are human and living at the hotel, filled with faeries, gargoyles, vampires, and other magical creatures. The building seems alive, and so is a lot of the decor. Amos seems to interact with a lot of it and can see what’s happening around him. Most of the time, Josie feels things. Pax is the hotel manager, and he and Josie have a definite attraction to each other. But will their worlds intersect, or will they collide?
This fantasy has romance and also a lot of magical happenings. When Josie learns the truth about the other tenants and the world they currently inhabit, will she want to live somewhere else or help the building and the tenants get back where they belong?
There is closure with the epilogue and a surprise ending. However, some loose ends are understandable if this is part of a series. If it’s not, I prefer the loose ends to be tied up.
Magic and Mischief at the Wayside Hotel is a magical romantasy that took me by surprise with the number of magical beings and their interactions on Earth!
USA Today bestselling author Elizabeth Everett lives in upstate New York with her family. She likes going for long walks or (very) short runs to nearby sites that figure prominently in the history of civil rights and women’s suffrage. Her series is inspired by her admiration for rule breakers and her belief in the power of love to change the world.
