Malum Discordiae

This book was a roller coaster ride! There were several moving parts, you didn't know who to trust, the bodies kept stacking up, and things between Graeme and Cassius were spicy! It had dark academia, witchcraft, demon attacks, murder, mystery, and true love. I can't wait to read the next book in the series!

A small Salem-esque New England town founded and inhabited by several witch families that pass on certain abilities depending on lineage. There's a group of families that are “light” witches that practice mostly natural/nature-based magic and some families considered “dark” mostly because of their dabbling in necromancy and darker arts. While these families control the town via government, the police force, and the university, the non-magical inhabitants supposedly know nothing about the witches among them. Using magic in public is forbidden and strictly enforced.
The book opens with Cash attending a party after being away from his hometown at a English boarding school for the past 6 years. His cousins drag him to the party as a sort of welcome home celebration. He meets a mysterious hot guy with heterochromia (this is mentioned a few times but is mostly irrelevant) that ends up sucking him off during a blackout. This guy turns out to be Graeme who is supposed to be Cash and his family's mortal enemy, due to Graeme's father having killed his mother which was the cause of Cash ending up on the other side of the world in boarding school. Greeting blow jobs aside, they end up being more than physically attracted to each other despite being from different sides of the divide and the town is throwing everything is has at their ties to try and break them up.
The characterisations are enjoyable and it has a somewhat HEA. This reminded me a lot of the movie The Covenant (2006) with a bit of Harry Potter and Romeo and Juliet lore thrown in. The last one is on purpose of the author, with even a R+J quote starting the book off. Basically if you liked any of those things but want it a little more adult (ie. sex), definitely give this a try.

While I enjoyed this book quite a bit, there are a lot of unanswered questions that hopefully get addressed in future books. Was the English boarding school also for witches or just a random school as far away as possible? Are there non-magical allies around the town or are all the non-witch people just really dumb/hexed? How could all these families be so intertwined but Graeme's rare heterochromia wasn't an automatic tip off - and is it genetic/has anything to do with being a witch?