would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this book

a witchy themed book but with ohhh so many tentacles to it that it made for a compelling read....

daisy hale is an outcast well that is what she thinks of herself after years of bullying and neglect from the people around her and its not even her fault....

the fault belongs to her parents who have been banished for the atrocities they had done and though people had taken her in it wasnt the same....

sloan wilkes has it all money, position but she is unhappy . she recognises that things are right and in her own way tries to do the right thing so when the council approach her after all her volunteering to help the less unfortunate she jumps at the chance after all she is more than her surname

the council want sloan and daisy to work together theres only one stumbling block.... daisy views sloan as one of the worst bullies in her life.... but they have to work together to make this happen.....

ohhh my so many issues this book covers..... it was a joy to read... i felt such sorrow for daisy and empathy for sloan each a victim of their upbringing and learning to trust each other was a bumpy road for them both but man this book kept me reading late into the night

will be keeping an eye out for more books from this author

Pushing Daisy didn't quite live up to my expectations, but this is probably primarily due to my personal preference for love stories/sex scenes. If you enjoy reading spicy romance books and don't mind more superficial relationships where the focus is more on attraction and sex, you'll like this book a lot more than I did. Overall, it's a sweet and cozy story, but I found it lacked depth and could have integrated the magic better.

2.75 rounded up.

Pushing Daisy follows Daisy, an ostracized witch, and her nemesis Sloan, the perfect daughter of a powerful family, as they are thrust together on a project for the supernatural council. They must confront their history and growing attraction to become successful partners, each with a passion for their work and improving their community.

This is the second book in the Leeside Witches series. I read the first, With This Witch, prior to starting this as the plot sounded intriguing. Whilst both can be read as standalones, there is information and history you learn from the first that is useful for the second. I preferred Pushing Daisy to its predecessor, as I felt it had more substance. Both feature a fair amount of spice, almost gratuitously, but more so in WTW. In Pushing Daisy, their work drove their romance through forced proximity, and whilst predictable, developed a bit more naturally than in WTW. Whilst this review is for Pushing Daisy, I find it hard to separate them as they were very similar. There were multiple instances across the two that felt lifted from the same base story, even down to characters choice in movie snack. I have to say reading them back to back also highlighted the similarities further, and I was tired of reading the same expressions over and over (goddess!) and cringey/stilted pet names for partners. Sentences and plots meandered, whilst other details were forgotten about until it was time in the overarching plot to be relevant again. It may be unfair of me to review Pushing Daisy with the paired thoughts of WTW but they're too intertwined for me to judge it alone.

I found the story(/ies) to be slower paced than I would prefer, often wishing the book(s) would just get on with it. Side characters, such as friends and family were very superficial and in both I felt that the relationships between them were lacking - especially for best friends Daisy and Petra. I feel both would've really benefited from exploring their friendship more, especially with them being so close, both losing family and only really having each other, and both subject to societal opinions. They felt more like acquaintances than anything, with their friendship told and not shown.

It was an easy read and enjoyable enough, but as I'm writing this review a week later, I'm struggling to remember most of what happened. I'd say it was fine, but I wasn't rooting for them, I wasn't twirling my hair, it was just okay. I wanted to like it more than I did, and maybe I shouldn't have read the two back-to-back but that's the benefit of hindsight. Daisy and Sloan do both have difficult family backgrounds but this could've been explored deeper, as could insecurities. I think with the combination of the above, I was just over it and wanted to get to the inevitable ending.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

I absolutely hate doing this when the author and publisher were ever so kind to grant me access to the book before publication. However, I fear I must DNF this book. I will never have the urge to finish this book, as I never have the motivation to pick it up-- in fact, getting to about 35% in this book put me in a reading slump, and not in a good way. I always promise to give 100% honest reviews, so I will be posting my negative review here on Netgalley, however I will refrain from posting to other sites such as goodreads in order to not stop others from reading this book because, hey, just because I don't like the book doesn't mean everyone wont like it.

Overall, this book is very poorly written. From glossed over details to unrealistic reactions to awkward dialogue to too-fast plot to overall poor writing, I struggled to get through every page. There's not one overall thing I disliked about the book, it's the entire execution.

I do love the representation in this book, and the concept sounds great in theory, but the execution was very poor and I cannot bring myself to finish the book. I feel I have read enough of it to get a sense of why I don't like it, and feel the need to post my honest review.

Again, I absolutely hate DNFing ARCs, but I absolutely cannot finish this book.
Thank you to the publisher for allowing me early access to this book.

I DNFed this quite early on because of the writing style. The sentences were so convoluted and there was so much “telling” instead of “showing”.

Late review, but I still wanted to get around to it.

I'm going to be so honest, I didn't really love this book and have quite a few critiques.

Starting with the positives, I ADORE that one of the FMC is plus size. The representation is SO welcome, and rarely seen in media, especially as a main character. I also love that the world is magical, but it's a modern day magical realism. It makes the atmosphere so whimsical and fun. I also feel like as a whole, the story was well written.

For the negatives, I feel like for a much pain as Daisy had to endure in her teens all at Sloan's hand, they fell in lust way too fast. Their relationship went from 0 to 100 and it was just jarring if I'm being completely honest. The other thing that I didn't like was the sex scenes. They were super smutty and explicit, which is completely fine, but some of the wording felt like it was a sapphic sex scene written by someone who has never had sapphic straight. It really took me out of the scenes and lowkey put me off a bit. I want sapphic smut to feel organic, and sadly, this felt kind of forced and like it was written by a straight person. Now, I do not know the authors orientation, and I won't make assumptions, but it just didn't feel natural to me.

I'm giving this a 2.5 stars, but I'm rounding up to 3 stars because I do love the plus size inclusion as well as the magical environment in which the story is set.

I received an arc and I am voluntarily leaving an honest review

This was a standalone linked to another book (which I have not read) and it was easy enough to pick up on the links to the other novel. I had a hard time connecting with the main characters and I feel like Daisy was a bit wishy washy- obviously this can happen when it comes to trauma but I feel like her character development was stunted because of it. The story itself was written well and the fantasy elements of the world were interesting.

A fun rivals to lovers romance!

Daisy has always been alone in the supernatural community because of her parents' mistakes. When she is offered the opportunity of a lifetime: become a consultant for the council, she finally sees herself being part of the community. The only problem is that she has to work with Sloan, her nemesis. Forced to work together, the two opposite witches will have to stay focused despite the tension and attraction between them.

I had fun reading this book! The magical aspect of the story, although essential to the plot, is not too present and makes for a nice, exciting touch that adds a bit of intensity to the story. Both characters are interesting and I'm always in for a rivals to lovers story, even if it's often all about miscommunication. There's something very satisfying about reading two enemies finally sitting down to talk and realizing they hate each other for a stupid reason. The tension between them was electric and undeniable, which was addictive. However, I sometimes didn't like the way they treated one another. It felt quite petty and not appropriate at times and threw me off a bit because the characters kind of treated it too lightly in my opinion. It was still a very fun and exciting read!

I recommend if you like wlw witchy romance!

"I don't know what I did to deserve you or how we even got here, but I will do everything in my power to ensure I get to keep you."

Pushing Daisy is the second in a series, but I read it as a stand-alone. The book did a good job filling in some details from the first book without overly explaining previous plot points.

I found the first half rather difficult to get through, while the second half found its stride. Most off-putting in the first half of the book was Sloan's seeming nonchalance and half-hearted apology for her role in making Daisy's life difficult as a teen. This was somewhat corrected in the second half, but still-- a bully romance (which I admit, is not usually my cup of tea) should have much more groveling from the former bully no matter how "misunderstood" she is.

The world building was lacking-- for example, the two main characters are organizing an event for town members who have been made outcasts in some way, but we're never given much information on who these outcasts are or why they have been marginalized. The characters, the plot, the world, and the villains all stayed at surface level exploration.

The highlight of the book and what ended up pulling me in was the "ice queen falls first" of Sloan falling fast and hard for Daisy. The spicy scenes were well done and I was rooting for the characters in the end. I also loved the curvy girl representation, which was written in perfectly.

An absolutely lovely read! It was magical and cozy and I absolutely recommend it to anyone and everyone.

Thanks to Wordy Whims Press and Netgalley for this copy in exchange for my review.

I love supernatural sapphic stories, especially with some enemies to lovers, but I found I might not have been the right audience for this particular story.

I wasn't able to finish this, unable to connect with any of the characters and couldn't get invested with what was going on. Maybe reading the first book would make me be more invested. Hopefully someone else will enjoy this.

I tried a couple times but I was just not able to get into this book. I was looking forward to reading a fantasy story, which is not my usual choice, but unfortunately the world building just felt lacking and the character development wasn’t strong enough for me to understand or empathize with Daisy. I would give this author another shot because I like the premise, but this book wasn’t for me.

This book was fine, just not for me. It's a sapphic witchy romance featuring enemies to fwb to lovers.

My big pet peeve is that it relies heavily on miscommunication to further the plot and that combind with a dual POV was rough to push through. I mostly found myself annoyed at the characters rather than rooting for the relationship.

I really didn't connect with either Daisy or Sloan, which is a miss for me in any romance novel, and made it even more difficult to root for them.

It's fairly spicy, maybe a little more than my personal preference.

Again, the book isn't inherently bad, I'm just not the right audience. I'd reach for other sapphic romance novels before I reached for this one to recommend to a friend.

An enjoyable paranormal sapphic romance!

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for this review.

I liked this story between Daisy and Sloan very much. I didn't read the first book in the series before this and that didn't hinder the ability to catch up on anything you may have missed in that first book.

Daisy and Sloan have a rough history. Daisy was tormented for who her family was growing up on and Sloan was part of that. Now they have been tasked to work together on an event for the town to bring people together.

I quite enjoyed the forced proximity of them spending so much time at the hotel together - being forced to get close to each other and work out their problems.

I wish I could say I enjoyed the one bed trope but if you're going to have one bed... ahem. USE the bed, if you know what I mean.

This book was spicy and there were a lot of deeper moments of them trying to figure out a life away from their family's toxic influence.

I wish more time and care was taken on that and the these characters similarities, and not so much on the numerous miscommunications they had in the book.

Overall though it was a good book and I enjoyed it!

This was a charming and quirky witchy read filled with delightful characters and a magical world that we could only wish in being a part of. The cosy vibes were incredible and the romance was great to follow, our sapphic couple had fantastic chemistry.

After a disappointing reunion with hr POS parents, Daisy Hale hopes a job offer from the council will be good news. It's not, she has to work with her former bully, Sloan Wilks.

Sloan wants to put her family's checkered past behind her, but Daisy is completely unwilling to cooperate due to Sloan's girl posse bullying Daisy.

There's some formatting weirdness, I assume will be fixed when it goes to print.

Sloan and Daisy's mutual friends Petra and Lachlan are trying to make them be friends, including pulling a 'Only one bed' gambit on them. Which honestly would have annoyed the heck out of me, personally...

The first make out session feels kind of sudden and abrupt, despite Daisy admitting Sloan is attractive. However the romance otherwise mostly works, and the writing is solid.

The book is a sequel to the author's first book, but reads OK as a stand alone.

I'm running out to buy book 1 in this series. Isla Winter created such wonderful characters and a world of magic that makes me wish I had powers. Highly enjoyed.

Thank you to Wordy Whims Press and NetGalley for providing an eARC for a honest review.

This is a cute, cozy, witchy, sapphic romance. Perfect book for those who may not know what to read, but wanting something a little different this fall season!

Thank you Netgalley, author, and publisher for the eARC.

2,5 ★

Trigger warnings: swearing, explicit sex scenes, loss of family (not through death), bullying (occurred in the past), grief
Tropes: enemies to lovers, misunderstanding, forced proximity, opposite attracts
Representation: lesbian romance, bisexuality, body positivity, main characters over 30


The city council has commissioned Daisy Hale and Sloan Wilks to plan an event with the goal to bring marginalized members of the community together. The problem: Sloan played a big part in making Daisy's high school years like hell for her. It is unimaginable for Daisy to work together with Sloan. Can the two of them put the past behind them and cooperate for the sake of the project?


Characters

Daisy is an outsider. When she was a little girl, her parents were banished from Leeside for selling magic to humans. Daisy was ostracized and bullied for her parents behaviour. Thus, her self-confidence and self-perception are low. Through the event planning, she can finally prove her abilities to the community and be part of something.

Sloan is the exact opposite of Daisy: wealthy, popular, confident. Her family has influence and a certain reputation - but Sloan would like to escape all that and go her own way. She wants to use the event to improve her image, but also to show everyone that she has changed.

I liked that both main characters are in their 30s (although they act very childish for their age at times) - I think the representation of 'older' characters is far too rare in many books. Overall, I liked them both, but Daisy was sometimes really annoying as she was often dismissive towards Sloan and unwilling to compromise.


Lovestory / Sex Scenes

I don't read romance novels very often, but I usually like the “Enemies to Lovers” trope because I feel that in this type of love story, the relationship is built up realistically and romantic feelings develop slowly. Unfortunately, in my opinion, this aspect came up short in Pushing Daisy. Although Daisy and Sloan don't like each other at the beginning and learn to appreciate each other more and more as the story progresses, the love story moved far too quickly for me. Basically, they both find each other attractive from the beginning and feel (physically) attracted to each other. That didn't work for me at all.

The focus is very much on the love story (the arguments, the mutual affection, the sex). The project does play a central role, as it is the trigger for the love story, but it is still more in the background. The relationship between Daisy and Sloan develops very quickly and I found it lacked depth overall. I couldn't quite understand until the end why they find each other attractive and what they like about each other. Because of this, some of the dialogues seemed a bit unrealistic to me.

I also had a few problems with the sex scenes. I don't mind reading explicit scenes, but I felt a bit uncomfortable reading them, especially because they both think about sex a lot without there being a suitable context. The sex scenes I've read so far also contained verbal eroticism, but in a much more “elegant” form. In contrast, the choice of words in Pushing Daisy seemed a bit clumsy and silly. I would classify the scenes more in the direction of “smut” - they were definitely very hot and explicit.

In the first 60% of the plot, the focus is more on arguments (which were annoying in the long run), mutual attraction and sex; later on, the feelings take center stage. That's why I liked the second half of the story more. A better balance between the two would have been ideal.


Miscellaneous

I really liked how magic works in this story: the magic differs from person to person and adapts to emotions and situations. I found this very exciting and I would have liked the focus to be more on the witchcraft/magic aspect. I also found the grimoire interesting, so much more could have been done with this part of the story. For the fact that Daisy and Sloan are both witches, there isn't as much witchcraft in the entire plot as I expected it to be. The story could have been written without magic and not much would have changed.

Other things that bothered me a bit: There is an unnecessary amount of swearing. Words or phrases are often repeated at short intervals, which disrupted my reading flow. The massage is weird and doesn't make sense in the project context in my opinion. The nicknames and the epilogue were too cheesy for my taste.


Stand Alone or Sequel?

Pushing Daisy is the second volume in the Leeside series, but it can be read independently from book one (With This Witch) as it is a stand-alone story. However, it often refers to the content of the first volume - so if you want to avoid spoilers, you should read With This Witch first. Everything important that happened in the previous volume, including the introduction of characters, is explained. Nevertheless, I sometimes had the feeling that I had missed background information from volume one in order to better understand certain thoughts/actions.


Summary

Unfortunately, Pushing Daisy didn't quite live up to my expectations, but this is probably primarily due to my personal preference for love stories/sex scenes. If you enjoy reading spicy romance books and don't mind more superficial relationships where the focus is more on attraction and sex, you'll like this book a lot more than I did. Overall, it's a sweet and cozy story, but I found it lacked depth and could have integrated the magic better.


Thank you to Netgalley and Wordy Whims Press for the opportunity to pre-read this book in exchange for an honest review.

I got this as an arc on Netgalley and it has since come out. It took me a bit to get into it, but when I got into it and they got into it, the book got devoured as quickly as they devoured each other. Nicely witchy and sapphicly smutty.