In these horrifying days, who doesn't need a happy story about Black sapphic girls falling in love, with a low stakes whodunit about magical mishaps? I sure did.

The story of Charmed and Dangerous centers a malfunctioning love charm which is wreaking havoc on Monroe Bennett's high school. Monroe, a young recruit of the Bureau of Mystical Affairs, must stop the charm and find the culprit, to gain a permanent position in the Bureau. Monroe is a mystic, one of the few who have the power to visually see charms, and not just their effects. To stop the charm, she agrees to fake-date the director's daughter. But how can she believably fake-date a rom com enthusiast, when she herself doesn't believe in romance?

The story takes place in the cozy town of Fair Glen, which used to be widely magical. Long ago, however, the ability to create new magic was lost. At the time of the story, the town still enjoys lingering charms, but some are starting to decay. It is the Bureau's job to find and contain malfunctioning magic, which causes mishaps. These mishaps can be anything from garden gnomes blocking the road on Monroe’s first day in her job, to far more dangerous accidents.

For example, in Monroe's school, everyone is excited and nervous for the upcoming Prom. Prom-posals, romantic gestures, and misguided crushes are flying around. What makes this all more dangerous is a misfiring charm that someone is circulating among the student body. The charm erupts when unreciprocated romantic connections are expressed. Only reciprocal romance can lift the curse.

For Monroe, the charm's damage is another reason to be critical of romance. The text juxtaposes Monroe's dislike of romance with her fake girlfriend Iris’s love of romance. Iris is an expert on the subject, writing fan fiction, sharing statistics about romance books, and taking Monroe on sweet dates. For example, the two go to a screening of Pretty Woman at a drive-in. Monroe ends up liking the movie enough that, after a magical mishap interrupts the date, she decides to watch the rest of it voluntarily.

The novel is a rare example of a story with a butch main character, which is delightful. I also enjoyed the fact that Iris’s feminine interests were described in a way that made me respect her. It would have been easy to make fun of a romance loving teenage girl. Girls’ interests are so often looked down upon, especially BIPOC girls’. Moreover, juxtaposing Iris with a less feminine, romance-averse character could have resulted in femmephobia. But I didn't feel as if that were the case.

Indeed, as a romance novel about romance, the story plays with meta-awareness a little: The characters, familiar with the fake dating trope, realize that they are in danger of falling in love with one another. In order to avoid that eventuality, they make a plan: they will treat one another in romantic ways they dislike.

“We do things that annoy each other so we don’t fall in love. For instance, I hate pet names. Honey. Baby. Sugar. Yuck. Call me one of those, and I’ll immediately get the ick. I also don’t like being walked to class. I’m an independent woman. I don’t need an escort.”

Of course, this is not a strong enough ploy to stop true love. But other issues stand in the way of our couple:

Iris is love-obsessed, and I’m too jaded about love for us ever to be a match. Iris wants someone who’s perfect for her. Someone who’ll float on a door with her in the ocean, climb fire escapes with roses in their mouth, and do all the rom-com stuff she deserves. I don’t know the first thing about romance.

I should be clear that Monroe is not aromantic herself, she just expresses opinions often socially linked with aromantic people, and goes through some experiences that many aromantic people do. As a quoiromantic (a type of aromantic) reader, Monroe's suspicion of romance was emotionally tangled for me to read. For example:

I ignore the uncomfortable tug in my chest at even the mention of crushes. […] They don’t understand why dating is the last thing on my mind right now. Even if I weren’t in the Bureau, romance seems pointless when I’m not even sure that kind of love exists. What is real is the Bureau. […] Being able to help people plagued by magical misfortunes is the thing that makes my heart race. Romantic love only reminds me of hard times and broken promises. I’m good without it, and nothing’s changing my mind.

I would have enjoyed more of a complex exploration of this topic, such as wondering what the difference is between friendship and romance, or acknowledging that the same plot could have happened as a queerplatonic relationship. The novel presents Monroe’s very valid suspicion of romance as nothing but a result of her parents’ divorce, and the story resolves with these feelings being “cured.”

Regardless, Monroe does express some important ideas that aromantic cultures respect, such as cherishing her platonic friendships:

Dad always says having a couple of good friends is better than a lot of mediocre ones. Liz and Andie are as good as they come. I’ve known Liz since pre-K, and when Andie moved to Fair Glen two years ago, he melded into our crew like he’d been with us for years. They always have my back and stepped up when my parents broke the news about their divorce. My friends came straight over, with Andie streaming Pose and RuPaul’s Drag Race and Liz keeping my plate full of her homemade chocolate cupcakes.

Developing deep, meaningful friendship, and valuing it over (or not as lesser than) romance is a cause I hold very dearly, and I loved that the novel seems to share this view. Even though the book is light and sweet, it respects its readers, including those who love a mystery plot. This is not one of those books where the mystery is only there to support the story. The novel provides a satisfying conclusion to the whodunit plot. The novel also respects the rules of its magical system, “curing” the victims by using it.

The novel has a delightful cover by Roxie Vizcarra and Casey Moses. In another life, in which I decorated my little functional flat, I would be getting another copy just to display it. The novel’s characters are likable and endearing, and their relationship is believable. I felt like they genuinely liked one another, which has been unfortunately rare in my romance reading lately. The novel is marketed as Young Adult, but I believe it works for adults as well—it does for me.