I just knew that I was going to love A Little Night Magic. The back summary sounded interesting and Susan Elizabeth Phillips wrote a blurb stating “Fresh and funny, warm and sexy. I can’t wait for more.” Unfortunately, I didn’t find it living up to any of these adjectives.

Olivia Kiskey grew up in Nodaway Falls, New York and has never left. She has an okay job working at crazy Cousin Betty’s Waffle House as a waitress, great friends, and she is in love with the cook, Tobias. But after spending the last year and a half signaling to him that she would like to take their friendship to the next level – hints that he obtusely ignored – she makes her move. Being decisively rebuffed prompts her to evaluate her life and she realizes that if she doesn’t get away, she will repeat her mother’s pattern of pinning away for a man. With some money saved, she plans to take off for Europe and then if she has to return to the states, perhaps move someplace warm.

She and Tobias are closing the Waffle House when she informs him that she will be leaving. He is understandably upset because he feels responsible, but soon is imbuing their relationship with special significance by telling her that everytime she sees a goat he wants a picture of her with the goat so she’ll remember him. Their conversation is interrupted by a woman desperate for something to eat. Taking pity on her, they agree to serve her. Extremely friendly the woman tells them to call her Davina. Tobias leaves after Olivia insists that she can close. But soon Olivia is feeling uncomfortable and regrets sending Tobias away because Davina follows her every move. Suddenly, Davina pulls out an old gym sock filled with a sand-like substance and throws it at Olivia, causing her to sneeze uncontrollably, and informs her that she is magic. Liv slips on the mop and cracks her head, passing out. When she comes to Davina has disappeared and Tobias is there.

The next day she and her friends have their monthly get together and Liv tells them she is leaving. Millie keeps throwing out that idea that Tobias is gay and not to take his rejection personally. But Stacy confesses that he is not, because she had sex with him right after he came to town. Intellectually Liv knows that she shouldn’t get hung up over this but the thought of her best friend shagging the guy she is in love with – the guy who turned her down – sends her to the local watering hole for tequila. Playing with the idea of not going home alone, she locks eyes with a stranger who immediately gives her pause. Throwing off the feeling, she joins two of the local men for some pool, hoping that they will at least try to hit on her.

Leaving the bar, she is pulled into the alley by the same drifter who demands to know if Gabriel Ford is her father. Even though he states he just wants to talk, she picks up the trash can lid for protection and is astonished when it heats up. Upon dropping the lid, it turns into a metal terrier like dog, growling and snapping at the stranger and then changes back to a ordinary lid again. Remembering her mother’s brain tumor symptoms Liv is sure that she suffering from the same thing and stumbles home. The subsequent morning Liv wakes up to find Davina in her kitchen. The bizarre magical symptoms continue as Liv changes a phone into a bat phone, and then a cup into a bunny cup. Liv reaches out to Tobias and her cousin Betty, eventually causing Betty to tell her the truth about her abilities and her family.

Betty also explains that others in the community have magic too. As Liv tries to take that in, she discovers the real reason Tobias moved to town. Not only does she have to contend with her feelings of betrayal and loss, something is threatening her town and the people she loves.

The first couple of chapters left me ambivalent. Both characters, Liv and Tobias, did not seem fully developed. And the emotional connection between them is muted. As an example, rather than include the scene where Tobias rejects Liv, it is just mentioned. And this is not the only example of telling instead of showing.

The tone of the book puzzled me, too, changing back and forth almost randomly. This is one of those books that not really ominous, not really funny, not truly tragic, not truly happy. The goat conversation didn’t seem especially romantic to me, however the inclusion of the part-trash can dog, bat phone and bunny cup are truly what did the book in for me. I just keep thinking this was very strange and too cutesy. By the time the bunny was introduced, I had equated the anthropomorphism with Disney movies, especially after Liv offers it part of her Pop Tart. I kept expecting a scene where these creatures would break out into a song and dance.

Lucy March is a pseudonym for Lani Diane Rich. I read her book Little Ray of Sunshine, which I thoroughly enjoyed. But this book seems completely different from her previous works. Of course that is probably why she is writing under a new name. However, this is one of those times where I liked an author’s old style of writing and not the new.