Although there were times Meg Shaffer’s The Book Witch felt like a young adult novel, she had me with her dedication. “Dedicated to…the librarians, booksellers, and teachers fighting the good fight to save our stories. And to all the world’s bedtime story readers.”

Rainy March is a Book Witch whose job is to protect all stories, especially from the Burners who want to destroy and burn all books that they do not consider classics. She lives in Fort Meriwether, Oregon with her grandfather (Pops), the first Book Witch in the family, and her familiar, a cat named Koshka. When their coven leader calls with a job for Pops, Rainy insists on taking it. She’s been in love with a fictional PI, the Duke of Chicago, since she was fifteen. He’s the star of a popular noir mystery series, a Duke who left his English home to become a detective in Chicago. His story is disappearing because a Burner considers the books trash. Rainy falls in love with him when she’s assigned to save his books, and he falls in love with her.

That’s just the beginning of Rainy’s surprising adventure through Romance, Mystery, Fantasy, Nonfiction, YA and Horror, Thriller, and Science Fiction. It’s an original plot. To explain it would be to ruin the story and the surprising twists along the way. But, in the course of her career, Rainy has met the Duke, and Elizabeth Bennet, attended the party in The Great Gatsby, met Edmond Dantes, The Count of Monte Cristo, and entered the world of Alice in Wonderland.

I love Book Witches who have a portrait of LeVar Burton over the fireplace. “He’s basically the patron saint of Book Witches.” And, the public library is “the sacred ground of all writers”. Shaffer covers so many genres in this tribute to books. As I said, it feels a little YA at times, but it’s an enchanting story. If you read Kate Quinn’s The Astral Library, you should try The Book Witch as a companion piece.

Meg Shaffer’s website is https://www.megshaffer.com/

The Book Witch by Meg Shaffer. Ballantine, 2026. 320p.

FTC Full Disclosure – I read a galley furnished by the publisher through NetGalley, with. no promise of a positive review.