Review: Potion Making for Disastrous Witches by Laura Greenwood

Posted May 5, 2023 by Lola in Fantasy, Review, Romance / 1 Comment

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Potion Making For Disastrous WitchesPotion Making For Disastrous Witches (Obscure Academy #5)
Laura Greenwood

My Rating: 3 stars

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Age Category: New Adult
Type of romance: MF

Blurb:
If there’s one thing Michaela is good at, it’s messing up potions and causing magical hiccups in the process.
And now she needs to make one or her friend will stay a slave to her curse.

Determined to get it right, she enlists the help of Owen, the best potion-brewing warlock at Obscure Academy.

As the sparks start to fly, the two discover they have more than just potion brewing skills in common.

Potion Making For Disastrous Witches is a light-hearted witch academy m/f romance set at Obscure Academy. It is Michaela and Owen’s complete story.

My Review

I received a free copy from the author through Booksprout and voluntarily reviewed it.

I am really enjoying this series and was excited for Michaela’s story. Michaela is the best friend of Thalia whose story I already read. As much I enjoyed returning to this series I enjoyed this book less than the others in this series as it felt like I already read half of the story in Blind Dates for Lonely Gorgons as there’s some overlap plot wise and I didn’t get pulled into the story as much due to that.

Michaela wants to help her friend who is a gorgon go on a date without her classes and risking turning her date into stone. She hears Owen is the person to help her with potions and so approaches him for help with the potion. Owen gladly will help her and as the two work on the potion they grow closer. I liked reading about the potion making process, even though Michaela can only fetch the ingredients as she ruins any potion she makes. There’s a bit about how the potion making works and the different steps which was fun to read about and I liked how Owen took her inability to make potions in stride and still found a way she could help by getting the ingredients.

I liked Owen and Michaela together and there are some sweet and fun scenes with them. Their ice cream date was a fun one and I liked their banter and the way they interacted with one another. I had expected more of the book to take place chronologically after Thalia’s story, but it matches the exact timeline of that book. Michaela’s trouble with potions it brought up multiple times, but there isn’t as much about what causes it or how to improve that, which on the other hand also was a nice as it was just how she was.

The focus of the plot besides the romance is on creating the potion for Thalia and I felt the plot of this book felt a bit lackluster because of that. I have already read Thalia’s story and enjoyed it and it felt like this was basically the other side of that story, namely what Michaela gets up to with the potion and Owen without Thalia. The plot of this book takes place at exactly the same time frame as Thalia’s story. And it just felt kinda off to me, there’s a fun twist in Thalia’s story, but as I already know the twist, that surprise was lacking here. I am not sure how this story could’ve been written to show their romance and not overlap so much with Thalia’s story, but it just didn’t fully work for me sadly.

To summarize: This was another fun and sweet paranormal romance story set at Obscure Academy. I liked reading about Michaela and Owen and how they grow closer as they work on a potion together. I liked learning more about witches and the potion brewing specifically. I liked their romance and especially their ice cream date scene and the thoughtful gifts Owen gets Michaela. I struggled a bit with how much of this story overlap with Thalia’s story, the stories take place at the same time and I felt like there was a bit too much overlap as I only read Thalia’s story a few months ago and it was still fresh in my mind. There’s a fun twist in that story, which I already knew here and didn’t have the same fun twist vibe as I already knew it. While this wasn’t my favorite story in this series I really enjoy this series and spending more time at Obscure Academy.

3 Stars

Links:
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You can also read my review on Goodreads and Bookbub.

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