Wicching Hour
Seana Kelly
389 pages
Published on April 1st, 2025
NYLA publishing
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Wicching Hour is the third book in the Sea Wicche (autocorrect hates that spelling as much as I do!) urban fantasy series about Arwyn Corey, an artist from Monterey, California, who has powerful magical abilities, an affinity for the ocean, and bakes a mean muffin, her werewolf boyfriend and various other supernatural family and friends. It’s a spin-off from the author’s Sam Quinn series, but you don’t need to have read those before starting these books. I do recommend reading this series in order though, starting with Bewicched, and including Night Owl Books, a short story set between the previous book, Wicche Hunt and this one, as it introduces Orla, a minor but still important character featured here. You do get some backstory here but by now there’s quite a large cast of characters and it would make a lot more sense than diving in here.
Arwyn’s gallery is finally open, her relationship with hunky werewolf alpha Declan is going well and her mysterious fae father, that she has never known, is now keen to get to know her. If only she didn’t have a stalker, a serial killer, aggressive wolves and a psychopathic sorcerer cousin to deal with, not to mention her snobby standoffish grandmother… Arwyn’s plenty powerful on her own, but her gifts come with unfortunate side effects so she’s going to need all the help she can get!
This was my favourite of the series so far – and I think I prefer these books to Sam’s series, enjoyable though that is. It’s one of the few series that I’ll actually buy on pre-order! I love that Arwyn is always able to get herself out of trouble, but doesn’t mind accepting help, rather than having to be rescued by her man. Declan helps her in plenty of other ways though, he’s always got her back without being all macho about it. The developing relationship with her father was also both touching and fascinating. I liked how the main baddie plot thread was wrapped up, but some interesting new developments pave the way for plenty more character development in the next books. In fact the only thing I don’t like about these books is that the woman on the cover, though beautiful, doesn’t match the description we are given of what Arwyn looks like. That’s not a reason to deduct any stars though – I tore through this and was very satisfied with the ending so five happy stars it is!
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