Name: Against the Grain
ISBN: 9780473575076

Melanie Harding-Shaw

A coeliac mountain biking witch finds a dash of romance while facing a dark trap with her snarky demon familiar.

Against the Grain

Lauren Sullivan

I somehow ended up on a mailing list for a bunch of “witchy fiction” written by authors from New Zealand, and when I saw this novella was about a witch with celiac disease? I absolutely couldn’t resist. This was a fun and relatively light cozy mystery with tons of Kiwi flavor.

Trinity has a set of immunity disorders: celiac’s, an overabundance of magic that basically would make her a battery to an unscrupulous witch, and one she jokingly says makes anyone she dates eventually act like a jerk to her. After her latest boyfriend trashes her apartment, Trinity’s moves on to the Wellington suburb of Karori. The newest place is an apartment above a bistro. When she tells the owner (and her new landlord) she has celiacs, he offers to bake her some gluten-free goodies, if she’ll taste test them. While Trinity would also like to possibly taste test the hot baking guy, she doesn’t want to up and leave town so soon, especially when she’s barely had time to explore the mountain bike trails here. But that might not even be a choice, as she discovers her demon familiar Saifa is seemingly trapped within the town. Is it a trap for any witch, or specifically for her?

“Aren’t you bored of being a moth yet?”
Aren’t you bored of mothballing your life yet?

Trinity’s a fun character, but my absolute favorite was Saifa. He’s a demon bound by a contract to not harm anyone else, only to take just enough energy from Trinity to leave her at more normal levels. He typically takes the form of various New Zealand native animals, like the pūriri moth on the cover. He’s snarky and passive-agressive, but it’s obvious he cares about Trinity, despite, you know, the whole ability to suck her dry of magic. There’s also the hot baker love interest and lots of yummy (gluten-free!) treats. I thought the magic portion was interesting enough, though it was pretty easy to figure out who the villain was. I honestly was having so much fun reading this that I didn’t much care, though.

Overall, this is a delightfully fun and quick read, and I’m definitely hoping for more of Trinity and Saifa!