Moonville

Tucked away in rural Ohio, Moonville is the kind of town where the line between the ordinary and the magical is permanently blurred. The Tempest family have lived there for generations - and the sisters at the heart of this series each carry their own complicated relationship with the powers that run in their bloodline. Sarah Hogle builds a world that feels genuinely sui generis: whimsical without being weightless, romantic without being saccharine, and funny in a way that earns it rather than insisting on it.

Each book in the series functions as a companion novel, centred on a different Tempest sister and a different love story, though the town itself - and its eccentric, warmly drawn community - threads everything together. The small town with dark underbelly comparison only partly fits here; Moonville is less sinister than it is quietly extraordinary, a place where hidden magic operates just beneath the surface of everyday life. Hogle's signature tone - sharp wit, genuine emotional warmth, and a gift for absurdist comic timing - shapes every page. Fans of paranormal romance with a cottagecore sensibility will find themselves wanting to move in permanently.

What makes the series particularly distinctive is its magic system. Rather than a rigid set of rules, the Tempest family's abilities feel organic and character-specific, tied to personality and belief - making hidden identity and found confidence as central to the story as the romance itself. The slow-burn romance is never rushed, and the banter between leads has genuine crackle rather than manufactured tension. At its core, each book is really about what happens when someone stops running from who they are.

Books in the Moonville Series

Old Flames and New Fortunes (2024) introduces Romina Tempest, a floral witch who uses the language of flowers to help others find love - while having long since given up on her own. When a fake-dating scheme to secure funding for her shop goes sideways and deposits her former high school sweetheart back into her orbit, the second chance romance and fake dating dynamics collide with real emotional stakes, grounded by Hogle's knack for writing longing that actually aches.

The Folklore of Forever (2025) follows Zelda Tempest, the self-declared sceptic of the family - a successful paranormal mystery author who has built a career writing about magic she flatly refuses to believe in. Back in Moonville nursing a brutal case of writer's block, she begins seeing strange creatures around town that nobody else can spot, drawing her into an investigation with Morgan Angelopoulos, a ghost-hunting podcast host who believes in everything she dismisses. The opposites attract dynamic is sharpened by Zelda's journey back to herself, making this as much a story of personal growth and exploration of identity and belonging as it is a romance.