Audiobook Review: Sweetwater and the Witch by Jayne Castle

Sweetwater and the Witch

Author: Jayne Castle
Narrator: Barbara Rosenblat
Series: Harmony (Book 15)
Publication: Recorded Books (September 20, 2022)
Length: 9 hours and 1 minute

Description: Welcome to the world of Harmony, where—despite its name, things are anything but—danger lurks just beneath the surface in this new novel by New York Times bestselling author, Jayne Castle.

If there's something Ravenna Chastain knows, it's when to end things. And after she almost winds up the victim of a cult that believes she's a witch, it's easy to walk away from her dead-end career, ready for a new start. But where to find a job that would allow her to use her very specialized skill set? The answer is clear: she becomes a matchmaker.

But even a successful matchmaker can't find someone for everyone, and Ravenna considers Ethan Sweetwater her first professional failure. After nine failed dates, Ravenna knows it's time to cut Ethan loose. But Ethan refuses to be fired as a client—he needs one final date to a business function. Since Ravenna needs a date herself to a family event, they agree to a deal: she will be his (business) date if he will be her (fake) date to her grandparents' anniversary celebration.

What Ethan fails to mention is that attending the business function is a cover for some industrial espionage that he's doing as a favor to the new Illusion Town Guild boss. Ravenna is happy to help, but their relationship gets even more complicated when things heat up—the chemistry between them is explosive, as explosive as the danger that's stalking Ravenna. Lucky for her, Ethan isn't just an engineer—he's also a Sweetwater, and Sweetwaters are known for hunting down monsters...

My Thoughts: Working as a profiler for the Federal Bureau of Psi Investigation proves to be a little more dangerous than Ravenna Chastain had anticipated. After being kidnapped by a cult that wanted to burn her as a witch, she decided to make a career change. 

Now a matchmaker in Illusion Town, she only has to deal with finding matches for covenant marriages for her clients. But Ethan Sweetwater isn't the sort of client the business is looking for. He is a member of one of the premier families on Harmony with talents that reach back to the old world of Earth, but his strong talents and inclination to secrecy makes it hard to find a perfect match for him. 

Ravenna wants to fire him, but Ethan demands his final contracted date, and he wants it to be with her. This has some positives for Ravenna too since she needs to find a date to her grandparents' anniversary party. Agreeing to "fake" date him to give him some pointers on his dating techniques should be a simple exercise. However, his ulterior motives put both of them in the crosshairs of a man who wants Sweetwater dead before he can expose his connection with Vortex. 

And Ravenna has an enemy of her own who wants her dead. Both Ethan and Ravenna find themselves beset by a variety of enemies. But Ethan's biggest problem is convincing Ravenna that their "fake" dates should lead to a real covenant marriage. 

Narrated by Barbara Rosenblat, the story moves along at a quick pace. The banter between the two takes on a new life when the story is heard rather than read. And there is a lot of banter...

Fans of Harmony and dust bunnies will also like getting to know Harriet who has a penchant for collecting pens. 

I bought this one at an Audible sale. You can buy your copy here.