https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/240059834-as-you-wish
Honey Braxton is a law abiding citizen she likes order and she has been living her orderly life as a wishing well auditor for the Bureau of Magical Compliance for the last 10 years and since she knows the rules inside and out she loves her job and makes sure that no one is making wishes that are breaking any rules. Going about her job as usual she gets the opportunity she has been waiting for forever... she can get a promotion she just has to go to an assignment on a farm and audit a wishing well that is way over due for evaluation this will be no big deal she'll go keep to herself audit the well give her review to her boss and get her overdue promotion.
Only when she gets to the farm the owner is less than thrilled to see her... in fact he asks her to leave and slams the door in her face. Ethan Hale is the handsome broody farmer that happens to own the land that the wishing well sits on he says it's not a problem he boarded it up just fine and no one is using it... only shortly after arrival she finds out from his young daughters that the well is not boarded up and it has been being used to help keep the farm afloat... not only this the magic is out of control as the wishes have been granted without being reviewed at all and most of them would have never been approved if they had been evaluated properly.
Honey notices other abnormalities throughout the town, Ethan is set on not having Honey look too closely at his town he doesn't trust anyone from the Bureau after an incident that occurred in his past... in fact he is closed off and even though he has support from his neighbors in town he is too proud to admit he needs help and has honestly been barely keeping his life together most days... the last thing he needs is for some government official creeping around so why did he just offer to let her stay with him at his home while she conducts her audit?
While Honey's initial arrival to the town and to Ethan's home is unwanted she learns that she is having a harder time once getting to know Ethan, his 3 girls, the towns people and even a baby goat how is she supposed to do her job and stay impartial when every day she is growing closer to this family but her life is in the big city and she has a promotion on the line... that's what is most important to her isn't it?
*ARC Read *2026 *Indie Author *magical world *Farmer MMC *magical auditor FMC
*single parent (MMC) *grumpy MMC *closed door romance *small town *Cozy read
*forced proximity *slow burn *Enemies --> more (kind of) *strangers --> more
Thoughts:
Honey is a straight laced no nonsence FMC who has to have everything in order and needs to fix things thinking she can just do her job and move on to her dream promotion she finds herself realizing that maybe there is more to life than following "every rule" you can't help but fall in love with Ethan and his 3 sometimes mischevious girls right along with Honey.
Ethan is broody and standoffish at first but pretty much right away you can see he is just a single dad struggling to keep his family farm a float while doing the best he can to take care of his girls, while he doesn't have all the answers he is present and he loves his girls.
The town and townspeople are charming and while I didn't fully understand the magic system or what was going on there I don't think it took away from the story.
This was a cozy read I loved watching Honey let down her guards and learn to have a little bit of fun. Ethan was a strong MMC who didn't like to ask for help but I loved how he finally realized that even when he turned away the help he had a whole town full of people who had his back... and maybe he could talk Honey into staying with him longer... maybe forever?
There is a bit of a mystery going on with the girls mother and what happened to her?
This was a really cute read I enjoyed it and I look forward to reading more by this author.
Have you read this book? What did you think?
