Ellie O’Neill’s debut novel, Reluctantly Charmed, is the latest ARC this pedometer geek read. Received as a Goodreads giveaway, this novel fits into the realm of magical realism. Here is the extended review.
Reluctantly Charmed
By Ellie O’Neill
Published by Touchstone, 2015
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
(Originally published by Simon & Schuster (Australia) Pty Ltd. in 2014)
ISBN: 978-1-4767-5755-1
“The world is full of magic things patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
Reluctantly Charmed by Ellie O’Neill is a lighthearted debut novel (with relatively few What-the-trends within its pages; it was nearly 250 pages in before anyone with green eyes appeared, but I digress) of the story of Kate McDaid, a young blue-eyed, ginger-haired Irish lass. She’s a junior copy-editor for an advertising house in Dublin, and has been for five years, but her life is upended on her twenty-sixth birthday. Making her birthday into her own personal New Year’s Day resolution-wise, she was optimistically planning to change her life…with a promotion, a much-anticipated pay raise, and a new job title. What happened, though, was much different.
At the small office party celebrating her birthday, she receives a registered letter inviting her to the reading of the will of Kate McDaid, a will over 130 years old. Once at the solicitor’s office, Kate finds that she has inherited the estate of her namesake (her great-great-great aunt). There is a caveat, however. She is to publish weekly under her own name a letter (written by the original Kate McDaid) and the Seven Steps, which are a series of poems about the existence of fairies. If she does, she will get her inheritance.
Using a friend’s Internet website that has gone unused for some time, she publishes the first of the Steps. From the publication of the first to the last, her life is transformed. She becomes a reluctant celebrity, eventually hiding out in the little village of her ancestor and learning all she can about the woman who was known as the Red Hag. Kate is not the only person changed; her friends and family are affected as well. In fact, those who believe (and even those who don’t) in the immortal creatures are affected in various ways.
As the weekly poems become less lighthearted and more sinister in tone, Kate must decide how to deal with the final one as the world takes note of the possibility of fairies. Will she publish it or will she suffer the consequences if she doesn’t?
Often humorous, yet sometimes serious, this novel of magical realism with a bit of romance gives the reader a sense of Ireland’s beauty, culture, and charm. This was an enjoyable, fun read that ultimately asks: What if?
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Do you believe in fairies? Did you ever?