Payback’s a Witch Review — Is It Worth Reading?

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Verdict: A hidden-magic-town rom-com with a lovely autumn setting and a complete HEA, held back by a sapphic romance that keeps losing the page to the ex-boyfriend it is supposed to be taking revenge on.

Best for: Readers who want cozy witchy atmosphere and a small town with rules above all else, and who can forgive a couple that gets less room than the man they are getting even with.

Heat level: ★★★☆☆ (3/5 — open door)

Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.5/5 — a 3.57 Goodreads average across roughly 47,000 ratings, with the romance itself the thinnest thread in it)

Tropes: Small-town return, hidden magical town, revenge alliance, shared ex, magical tournament, found family, bisexual leads, opposites attract, single first-person POV, cozy autumn atmosphere.

Payback’s a Witch by Lana Harper is the first of five Witches of Thistle Grove books, a sapphic paranormal romance from Berkley set in a hidden magical town in Illinois where Emmy Harlow comes home after nine years to arbitrate a spellcasting tournament — and finds that the woman she cannot stop looking at, Talia Avramov, was wrecked by the same ex-boyfriend she was.

It has a 3.57 average across roughly 47,000 Goodreads ratings, two starred trade reviews and a New York Times bestseller run — and a reader consensus that diverges from the professional one on the most important question a romance can be asked. Both halves of that split are worth understanding before you start.

What Is Payback’s a Witch About?

Payback’s a Witch is a small-town paranormal rom-com, and the small-town part is not decoration. Thistle Grove is a hidden magical settlement founded by four families, each with its own domain — Harlow scholarship, Avramov necromancy, Thorn growing things, Blackmoore illusion — and every fifty years they fight a tournament called the Gauntlet for the town’s magical primacy. That machinery gives the book its shape: an inherited hierarchy, a family everyone has written off, and a heroine who referees rather than competes.

Emmy Harlow is introduced through what she lacks: a weak witch by Thistle Grove standards, gone to Chicago at eighteen so she would not have to be measured, her magic thinning ever since. Talia Avramov arrives as what Emmy assumes she is — intimidating, unimpressed, very good at the magic Harlows do not do. The book runs on a single first-person voice, Emmy’s throughout, which is where much of its charm lives and where its central problem lives too.

What Makes This Cozy Sapphic Witch Rom-Com Work

• The town: Thistle Grove is the most-praised element by a wide margin. Readers reach for Practical Magic, Halloweentown and Hocus Pocus over and over, and Amazon’s review summary leads on atmosphere before it names a character.
• The four-family system: Giving each bloodline a distinct magic makes the tournament legible, explains the class resentment under the cozy, and gives the cast somewhere to stand.
• The autumnal prose: Kirkus singles out the “lush language” used on the setting, and admirers name the sensory writing first — the same prose other readers call overwritten, which makes it taste rather than craft failure.
• Bisexual leads, both of them: Emmy and Talia are both bi and the book treats that as unremarkable. Reviewers who care about it notice specifically.
• A complete, standalone ending: Romance and tournament both resolve, and there is an HEA. Four more Thistle Grove books follow and not one is required reading.

Book Synopsis

Emmy Harlow has spent nine years not going home. Thistle Grove is a town where magic is real and hierarchical, where four founding families have held their positions since the settlement began, and where the Harlows have always been the administrators rather than the powers. Emmy is a weak witch even by Harlow standards. She left for Chicago, built a life curating other people’s beautiful objects, and let her magic thin out to almost nothing.

Then the Gauntlet comes around. It decides which family runs Thistle Grove’s magic for the next fifty years, and a Harlow has to arbitrate it. Emmy is the Harlow whose turn it is, so she goes back for a month she intends to survive rather than enjoy.

What she finds is Talia Avramov — a witch whose family handles the things nobody else will touch, who is furious in a way Emmy recognises, and who was until recently involved with Gareth Blackmoore. So was Emmy’s best friend, Linden Thorn. So, nine years ago, was Emmy. Three women, one man, and a tournament in which he is a contestant and Emmy holds the rules. The alliance forms almost immediately. What takes longer is Emmy admitting that the reason she cannot stop watching Talia has nothing to do with the plan.

My Review

The town is the best thing here and it is not close. Thistle Grove feels like somewhere with a history that existed before the plot arrived — a hierarchy that inconveniences people, shops and rituals and grudges. Harper is very good on autumn, and if you came for the sapphic-Practical Magic feeling the cover sells, you will get it. The four-family structure is the smartest construction in the book, because it makes the setting a system rather than a mood.

Emmy is a good narrator when the book lets her be one, funny and observant, and the coming-home thread has real feeling in it. The supporting cast is unusually solid for a romance this length — the Avramovs especially, whom continuing readers name as the reason.

Where it struggles is the romance, and this is not my private objection — it is the single most repeated criticism in the reader reviews, recurring independently at every star level. Gareth Blackmoore, a man who is not in the pairing, is the organising principle of the book: why Emmy left, why the alliance exists, why Talia is in the plot at all. One blog reviewer titled the problem “Too Much Man.” Under that sits the second complaint — Emmy and Talia turn quickly and without much friction, and romance.io’s own tag list includes insta-love.

Two smaller things stack on top. The Gauntlet is thinner than the premise implies — readers wanted more tournament and got more town, and Kirkus agrees the contest takes a back seat. And the revenge is mild; one reviewer called it a device to get the leads into the same room, which is deflating if you came for John Tucker Must Die with witches.

So here is the expectation to reset: this is packaged as a sizzling sapphic revenge rom-com and reads as a warm hometown novel about family and belonging that happens to contain a romance. BookPage, in a starred review, said the quiet part out loud — the true romance is with the town. If the town is what you want, you will be happy. If you came for two women falling for each other, calibrate down.

My honest note: A five-star setting wrapped around a three-star romance, and lovely company for an October evening regardless. If you read romance for the couple, the ex will drive you up the wall; if you read it for the world, Thistle Grove is one of the better ones in sapphic paranormal.

Element	In Payback’s a Witch
Central relationship	Emmy Harlow & Talia Avramov — a fading Harlow arbiter and an Avramov who works the darker magic, allied against a shared ex
Core tropes	Small-town return, revenge alliance, shared ex, hidden magical town, magical tournament, found family, opposites attract
Setting	Thistle Grove, Illinois — a hidden magical town run by four founding families, during the once-in-fifty-years Gauntlet
Heat level	3/5 — open door
Series	The Witches of Thistle Grove book 1 of 5 — complete arc and an HEA; the series finished in 2024 and each book follows a different couple
Content notes	Sexual content, alcohol and cursing on the page; infidelity, a toxic relationship and some violence at moderate weight; misogyny and classism in the background

How Spicy Is Payback’s a Witch?

A 3/5. romance.io bands the steam level at three of five and labels it “open door” — the middle of its scale, meaning the door is open but the book is not built around what is behind it. That matches what readers report: the sex is on the page rather than implied, it arrives late, and there is not much of it. StoryGraph’s warnings list sexual content at the graphic tier, so “open door” means explicit when it happens, not frequent.

Nothing here needs flagging in advance. No reviewer I found names specific kink content, and nothing in the sex drew objections beyond a wish for more of it. The infidelity in the content notes belongs to Gareth before the book opens, not to the central couple. For the same band elsewhere, The Honey Witch and The Accidental Bite both sit at 3/5.

Who Should Read This Book?

You’ll likely love it if: you want a hidden magical town with real internal rules, you read cozy fantasy for atmosphere first and plot second, you want bisexual representation handled without fuss, and you would rather have a complete standalone than a five-book commitment.

You may want to skip it if: you need the couple to hold the centre of the book, you want a magical tournament that delivers on its stakes, you have no patience for a heroine still processing a high-school relationship at twenty-six, or you were promised revenge and will feel short-changed by mild consequences.

In short: an excellent place, a likeable narrator, and a romance that never quite gets the space it was sold as having.

What Readers Are Actually Saying (August 2026)

The most interesting thing about this book’s reception is how far the professional verdict sits from the reader one. It took two starred trade reviews — Publishers Weekly, which said it “bewitches from the very first page,” and BookPage — plus a warm Kirkus, a School Library Journal write-up and a New York Times Book Review notice, and it was a New York Times bestseller. Not one of them raises the complaint that dominates the reader reviews. There is no BookTok wave either, and for a book with 47,000 Goodreads ratings the Reddit footprint is almost invisible: an r/RomanceBooks FF Book Club pick that drew four comments, and on r/sapphicbooks only appearances in other people’s recommendation lists. The one live industry development is a 2022 option — Village Roadshow Television took it for a series called Witches of Thistle Grove — and four years on there is no network and no production news.

Why readers love it (according to the discourse): Thistle Grove, first and by a distance. “Cozy” and “atmosphere” are the recurring words, and the comparisons are remarkably consistent — Practical Magic, Halloweentown, Hocus Pocus. StoryGraph readers call it lighthearted at 74% and the characters loveable at 81%, a very high number that says the book delivers comfort reliably. The four founding families draw specific praise, the Avramovs especially. And a real minority defends the prose everyone else objects to — Kirkus among them.

What readers argue about and complain about: Gareth, above everything. The ex-boyfriend is not in the romance and is nonetheless the book’s centre of gravity, and independent reviewers at one, two and three stars all land on it. Second and connected: the romance is thin and fast, with readers unconvinced by how quickly Emmy and Talia turn and one one-star reviewer saying flatly there is no chemistry whatsoever. That is where the genuine split lives — Smart Bitches, Trashy Books graded it a B and called the chemistry sizzling. Third: the prose, which detractors call purple and over-adjectived and admirers call lush. Fourth, the Gauntlet underdelivers, its challenges less elaborate than the premise promised. Beyond that: Emmy reads immature for twenty-six, the dialogue is YA-coded for an adult novel, and the revenge is too mild to justify it.

The standalone question worth asking first: this one is easy. Payback’s a Witch resolves completely, delivers an HEA and requires nothing after it. The series ran to five books, finished in 2024, and each follows a different couple in the same town. Most people stop here: book one has around 47,000 Goodreads ratings and book two, From Bad to Cursed, around 14,800 — roughly two-thirds did not go on. The ones who did rated it higher, 3.73 against 3.57, with book three at 3.71. If Thistle Grove is what you liked and the romance is what disappointed you, the sequels are the better bet, not the worse one.

On audio, all five books are read by Jeremy Carlisle Parker for Penguin Audio, book one running ten hours and fourteen minutes and released alongside the print edition in October 2021.

Prefer audio? Listen to Payback’s a Witch on Libro.fm — the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Payback’s a Witch end on a cliffhanger?

No. The romance resolves, the Gauntlet resolves, and Emmy and Talia get a happily-ever-after. The series continues for four more books, but each follows a different couple.

How spicy is Payback’s a Witch?

A 3/5. romance.io bands the steam level at three of five and labels it “open door.” The sex is explicit when it arrives, but it arrives late and there is not much of it.

Is the Witches of Thistle Grove series finished?

Yes. Five books published between 2021 and 2024, ending with Rise and Divine. Each centres a different couple, so you can read them in any order or stop after this one.

Is it really a sapphic romance, or is it about the ex-boyfriend?

Both, and that is the book’s most divisive quality. Emmy and Talia are the couple and they get their HEA, but Gareth Blackmoore drives most of the plot, and the most repeated reader criticism by a wide margin is that he takes space the romance needed.

Is there an audiobook?

Yes — narrated by Jeremy Carlisle Parker for Penguin Audio, running ten hours and fourteen minutes, released in October 2021 alongside the print edition. Parker reads all five Thistle Grove books.

If You Loved Payback’s a Witch, Read These Next

If Thistle Grove was the draw, The Honey Witch runs the same cozy-witchy atmosphere at the same 3/5 heat with a slower, sadder centre. If you wanted the couple to get more of the page and more heat with it, A Witch for Solstice is the spicier version of this exact appeal. And if it was the small town rather than the magic, In the Event of Love is a hometown-return sapphic rom-com with no spellcasting at all.

For more in this register, browse our complete small-town lesbian romance reading list or the full Book Reviews collection.

The Bottom Line

Payback’s a Witch set out to be a sapphic revenge rom-com in a hidden magical town, and it is unambiguously excellent at one of those three things. The town is superb, the magic system is smart, the ending complete and warm. The revenge is mild, the tournament underused, and the romance — the part a book with this cover is bought for — spends too much of its length orbiting a man neither woman wants. As an autumn comfort read it earns its 47,000 ratings; as a sapphic romance it is the weakest thing in its own book. Check Payback’s a Witch on Amazon →

The Eikna Overall Ranking

On the Eikna scale, Payback’s a Witch ranks as a top-tier cozy sapphic setting novel — warm, atmospheric and reliably comforting, undercut by a central romance that never gets the room it needed, and best approached for Thistle Grove rather than for Emmy and Talia.

The Evidence Scorecard

Overall ★★★★☆ 3.5/5

• ✓ 3.57 average across 47,000 Goodreads ratings
• ✓ Two starred trade reviews and a NYT bestseller run
• ✓ Only 5% did-not-finish on StoryGraph
• ✓ Weakest element is the romance itself

Romance ★★★☆☆ 3/5

• ✓ Both leads bi, handled without fuss
• ✓ Allies-against-an-ex is a fresh engine
• ✓ Smart Bitches graded the chemistry a B
• ✓ The ex outweighs the couple on the page

Characters ★★★★☆ 3.8/5

• ✓ 81% call the characters loveable on StoryGraph
• ✓ Emmy’s narrating voice is funny and warm
• ✓ Four founding families give the cast somewhere to stand
• ✓ Emmy reads immature to many readers

Writing ★★★★☆ 3.6/5

• ✓ Kirkus praises the lush autumnal language
• ✓ Sensory detail is what admirers name first
• ✓ Publishers Weekly starred the adult debut
• ✓ Detractors call the same prose purple

Emotional Impact ★★★☆☆ 3.4/5

• ✓ The coming-home thread genuinely lands
• ✓ Family legacy and belonging carry weight
• ✓ BookPage starred it for community and family
• ✓ 74% lighthearted, so the stakes stay low

Heat Level ★★★☆☆ 3/5

• ✓ romance.io bands it “open door”
• ✓ Explicit on the page when it arrives
• ✓ StoryGraph flags sexual content as graphic
• ✓ Late and infrequent against the marketing

Ending ★★★★☆ 3.9/5

• ✓ Complete arc, HEA, no cliffhanger
• ✓ Works fully as a standalone
• ✓ School Library Journal called the HEA unexpected
• ✓ Gauntlet resolution reads anticlimactic

Re-read Value ★★★★☆ 3.7/5

• ✓ Built for an annual autumn reread
• ✓ Parker’s audiobook is a strong second pass
• ✓ Four more Thistle Grove books to fall into
• ✓ Two-thirds of readers never continued the series

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