The Witches of Thistle Grove is a series of Queer Paranormal Romance books by Serbian-born American author Lana Popović Harper
, in her debut first adult novel series. The first book in the series, Payback's a Witch, was published October 5th, 2021. The second book, From Bad to Cursed, was published on May 17th, 2022. The third and third book, Back in a Spell, was published on January 3rd, 2023. The fourth book, In Charm's Way, is expected to be published in August of 2023.
The series' setting takes place in the titular town of Thistle Grove, a town in Illinois that appears to be an example of Everytown, America to the outside world, but is actually more of a Town with a Dark Secret: magic exists here. The series is kicked off when Emmy Harlow returns to the magical town after years of a Self-Imposed Exile in order to fulfill her family's role as the Arbiter in the seventh iteration of the town's spell-casting, quarter-century Gauntlet. As if returning wasn't bad enough, her Handsome Lech Old Flame Gareth Blackmoore and former high-school crush Talia Avramov are two of the participants in the tournament. To make matters worse, she discovers Gareth and Talia had just broken up and that Gareth was also seeing Emmy's Best Friend Linden, unbeknownst to either of them, so Talia and Linden approach Emmy to see if she wants in on seeking revenge. Suffice to say, magical shenanigans unfold.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Winning the tournament increases the winning family's magical power by magnitudes and even bends luck towards their favor. Since the Blackmoores have won all but one tournament since the beginning, they effectively run the town.
- Benevolent Mage Ruler: The town is led by four families whose progenitors helped create the town. While the Blackmooores tend to dip in and out of this trope, the other 3 families do work together to keep the town thriving and protected.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Each founding family has two colors associated with them which makes them easier to discern at traditional gatherings and events.
- Everytown, America: What it disguises itself as.
- Feuding Families: While every one of the families has a legitimate problem with the Blackmoores, the other 3 families seem to have a Friendly Rivalry with each other.
- Muggle–Mage Romance: Since access to the magic requires the bloodline of one of the four founding families, the only way outside of that to get access to magic is to become a committed romantic partner (i.e. marry into the family), like Cecily Harlow.
- Say My Name: Multiple characters have a habit of referring to each other by family name. Talia is the biggest user of this.
- Snark-to-Snark Combat: What many of the main characters end up falling into with each other and the antagonists.
- Town with a Dark Secret: Played with; the town's secret isn't necessary dark, but it is a town of magic users that even some of the residents are unaware of.
- World of Snark: There is not many characters in this series that do not display some variation of snark here and there.
- “The witch is back and ready for revenge."
- Fantastic Racism: "Normie" is meant for those who can't do magic and is treated as a slur by Emmy.
- The Ghost: Emmy alludes to good friends and co-workers back in Chicago, but we never see or hear from them.
- Glamour: Talia uses a glamour spell to hide from Gareth and his fellow Blackmoores in the Shamrock Cauldron and to avoid talking to a particularly lonely-looking birthday bachelorette.
- Out-of-Character Alert: Because of the long-standing "feud" between Thorns and Avmarovs, when Talia joins Emmy and Linden for lunch and sees that Talia and Linden are quite congenial with each other, she immediately knows something's up.
- Revenge: The theme of the book.
- Say My Name: Emmy says Linden's full name to get her to reveal that Linden had recently dated Gareth.
- Self-Imposed Exile: Stated both in the summary of the book and explained in further detail in the book, but Emmy left Thistle Grove due to discrimination in the magic community and the way Gareth broke things off with her.
- “Opposites attract…"
- Ascended Extra: Not that they weren't prominent in the first book (Rowan played a critical part throughout the story and both were supporting characters), but here they are upgraded to being the protagonists of this book.
- A Day in the Limelight: Rowan and Isadora, two supporting characters from the first book get a whole book as protagonists.
- Ambiguous Gender Identity: Morty, and the summary of the book itself, identifies as non-binary, but they state that they go by he/him/they/them pronouns at work and sometimes at home. Not helping, Nina and the book itself seems to refer to them mostly in he/him pronouns.
- Ascended Extra: Morty and Nina are moreso this than Rowan or Isadora. Morty only had a few appearances in the first two books and Nina was only mentioned once early in Payback's a Witch, but here, they are the protagonists.
- A Day in the Limelight: Morty and Nina, a recurring supporting character and a minor character, get a whole book dedicated to them.
- A Day in the Limelight: Delilah, Emmy's cousin from the first book, finally gets to be a main character in this novel.
