Publication Date: May 14, 2020
It all began with an innocent prank. Tilly, Drew, and Dizzy, inseparable friends, had dressed as witches and planned to spend Halloween evening watching horror films while Drew’s mother attended a costume party with Jacques, her college flame, who was a total dork. Worse, her mother was actually considering marrying this pompous jerk, which meant Drew would have to move to France, dress like a mime, eat snails, and carry a baguette everywhere she went.
The girls decided, since they were dressed as witches, it would be fun to cast spells on Jacques. To their utter amazement, each of their spells came true in outrageously comical fashion.
Convinced they had somehow acquired magical powers, the girls resolve to use witchcraft to find a more suitable mate for Drew’s mother. As long as they were at it, they might as well find partners for Tilly’s mom and Dizzy’s dad as well.
Love Spells by Gino Cox is a quirky tale about three teenage girls who are wannabe witches forever casting spells to find mates for their parents. The spells are full of details and magic, and I loved the rhymes. The spells were the best part of the story for me.
The book has more characters than expected, and too many are central to the story. They help flesh out the story, but so many of them were used in rotating chapters to tell the story from their point of view and some chapters were extremely short. The story could have benefited from more robust plot and character development.
Several stories were told within the main arc, and most were set during a birthday party. There are many references to movies, shows, actors, music, and even food that were popular long ago. There are secrets, surprises, and laugh-out-loud moments due to the spells not always spot on. The story ends abruptly, and an epilogue might have given better closure.
Love Spells has a lot of love spells—what else would you expect given the title—filled with rhymes that were truly poetic and nicely woven into the story.
Gino Cox grew up in Wilmette, Illinois on Chicago’s north shore. He studied economics at Rockford College and marketing at Northwestern University’s J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
He eventually moved to Malibu, California, where he worked for various entertainment companies, including a stint as general manager of Fleshwound Films, a company that produces extreme sports videos and live events, and is credited as production manager for Crusty Demons: 9 Lives.
While in California, he wrote, directed and produced a series of comedies for cable television and wrote several screenplays that received critical success in several minor competitions. His œuvre includes a fifteen-minute comedy loosely based on A Midsummer’s Night Dream, written entirely in iambic pentameter.
Gino has also appeared on stage in minor roles as an actor (three productions, eighty performances) and dancer (two productions, three performances).
Gino now lives, works and writes in Southeast Asia.
