Isn’t this this the same story as the first book? I buried a Witch by Josh Lanyon

Isn’t this this the same story as the first book? I buried a Witch by Josh Lanyon

I buried a Witch is the second book in the series Bedknobs and Broomsticks by Josh Lanyon. A modern fantasy story following a MxM romance with a murder mystery in the background. Published back in 2019, along with the first book and frankly, is pretty much just an extension of the first book. All the problems and plot points are a continuation of the first book.

Cosmo is coming home from his honeymoon with his husband John. Now following his theory in the first book that the murder of his rival wasn’t done by his wife. Which is obvious, then he connects it with other murders on Wiccans and the story continues with him following the leads, argues with John who finds out Cosmo is a witch and he once was under a love spell and that is the book.

Cosmo is the goodhearted but a bit of an airhead. He is a rich boy, and spoiled. I think the book described him as a man who never hears a no to any of his requests. He also uses magic a bit to fast to control his husband but he understands that it is wrong and most of all, this book is about him learning from his mistakes and growing along with it. Becoming more than he was before.

John is perhaps the biggest problem in this book, I don’t mind but the signs I saw in the first book of him being bossy, dominating and narrowminded. In this book it fully is blown out and we truly see all his faults and Cosmo has to learn about them as well only to grow a backbone to tell John off. Now, I didn’t mind Johns personally though he is definitely an asshole, but considering how his mother is along with the mention of him being in war. It makes sense that he comes with a baggage.

My problem wasn’t really the characters, which I noticed that many other reviewers seemed to dislike, but the lack of an identity of this book. This felt and was a continuation of the first book in every way. What we thought was solved in the first book wasn’t really solved. People vanishing in the first book came back often as bad guys and the argument is about the love spell that occurred in the first book. Most of the problems between the couples are that they don’t really know each other and since they married in the first book after two weeks, I can understand the problem.

But all of this sums up to this book not really feeling like its own entity but just a part of the first book. Continuing a story isn’t strange in a series but each book needs to have their own plot. Their own center, or it feels cheap. Like the writer hadn’t come up with a second story and is just riding the tailcoat of another one’s glory.

I also think that the second book has the very common problem of second books in that the author is trying to introduce to many plotlines, making the story chaotic. We have the murder of the last book, the new murders, a secret society that are believed to want to kill witches, we have character becoming witches, we have John and Cosmos relationship, we have the present of the secret society of witches who doesn’t like ordinary humans, along with the increasingly rivalry inside Cosmos noble family. There is even more for the side characters, such as Johns sister apparently being a witch and want to learn and Cosmos friend Andrew doesn’t want to fall in love with the mortal she is currently with and so on.

As you can imagine, it becomes increasingly difficult to care about all of these, mostly because few of them get any time to actually fester and most are only mentioned or get one scene. As I mentioned before, this is a common problem with second book, games or movie in a trilogy. They are mostly bridging between the first story and the third and is rarely as good.

Overall, I liked the story. It wasn’t as good as the first one and I missed some the lightheartedness that existed in the first book. This book felt a bit heavier and some of the insane things, such as Cosmo’s airhead personality didn’t go over as well because of the more serious plotlines. The same can be said about the quirky witches who just stick out as a sore thumb according to me.

I gave the first book a solid 9 out of 10 but cannot give this one the same rating. It felt flatter and lacked an identity. It was just the first book again but less of everything. All in all, I will give this one a 6 out of ten. Just above average. It didn’t leave a mark on my mind and I mostly read it because I loved the first book. I can imagine that many will do the same.

With Kind Regards

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