New Romance Novels Brimming With Unhinged Wish Fulfillment

The Witch of Wall Street

by M.J. Etkind

In a subgenre known for its small towns, THE WITCH OF WALL STREET (Self-published, ebook, $5.99) shoots above the crowd like a skyscraper. Miriam Blum, an investment banker, and Nelson Copperfield, a nonprofit C.E.O., are witches and opposing bidders in a major Manhattan real estate deal. They’re also high school rivals, since Nelson often had to rescue Miriam from the snarls caused by her chaos magic. She’s learned to control her power, she’s fought her way up in the financial world and she’s not about to let some smug do-gooder get one over on her now.

But he’s grown hotter since high school, so she might take him home with her, just once. This ill-advised hookup turns disastrous when Miriam’s chaos magic scatters their enchanted possessions across the city, forcing them on a quest through the supernatural nooks and crannies of New York. It’s refreshing to see magic as just one more subcultural layer woven through the texture of the city (and I would perish at the magical dim sum place with no regrets).

Also refreshing: Miriam is a bit villainous and knows it, which I always appreciate in a heroine. Etkind’s book is not so much about choosing pure good versus pure evil, but rather about how to create opportunities for doing good in a world full of shades of gray.

Along Came Amor

by Alexis Daria

The need to upend the status quo is also a theme in ALONG CAME AMOR (Avon, 512 pp., paperback, $18.99), the third and final volume in Daria’s gloriously angst-saturated Primas of Power series. You’ll be fine starting with this volume, but the trilogy as a whole is well worth the time; these three books have more concentrated pining than an Austen movie marathon on a rainy afternoon.

Ava Rodriguez is fresh off a painful divorce a lot of her family members blame her for. So when a chance encounter leads to one night with a sexy hotel C.E.O. — and then another, and another — she doesn’t see the need to tell any of her friends or relatives about it. All she wants is one thing in her life she can enjoy without anyone peevishly asking how long until she screws this up, too.