The Ex Hex

The Ex Hex is Erin Sterling's 2021 debut novel launching the Graves Glen series, delivering cosy paranormal romance through the story of Vivienne Jones - a witch whose teenage heartbreak over Rhys Penhallow led her to place a hex on him after their breakup - and the magical chaos that erupts when Rhys returns to Graves Glen nearly a decade later and the long-forgotten hex begins making itself known. Through the reunited lovers framework with witchy complications, Sterling blends humor about supernatural mishaps with genuine emotional weight about first love, the lasting impact of heartbreak, and whether feelings carefully buried over years can stay buried when the person who inspired them walks back into your small town and your life.

Vivienne Jones lives in Graves Glen, the small Southern town with a significant witch population where she grew up, teaches at the local college, and has built a comfortable life that carefully doesn't include thinking about Rhys Penhallow or the summer they spent together before he broke her heart and left. The hex she placed on him in the aftermath of their breakup was teenage emotion channeled into magic - the kind of thing you do when you're young and hurt and not thinking about consequences, and then forget about when years pass and life continues.

Rhys Penhallow returns to Graves Glen as the new college head, his arrival upending Vivi's carefully maintained equilibrium. When magical mishaps begin occurring around him - small at first but escalating in ways that suggest something supernatural is very wrong - Vivi recognizes her forgotten hex causing problems neither of them anticipated. The situation forces them into proximity and eventually cooperation as they work to undo magic that has had years to settle and strengthen.

Sterling uses the hex as clever romantic device - the magical problem requiring resolution creates legitimate reasons for Vivi and Rhys to spend time together despite their history, generating the forced proximity and cooperation that romance readers enjoy whilst grounding the necessity in the story's magical logic rather than contrived coincidence. The hex also functions as metaphor for how heartbreak lingers and shapes behavior even when we believe we've moved past it.

Rhys's perspective on their history, his reasons for leaving, and what returning to Graves Glen means for him develop as the novel progresses, creating the emotional depth beneath the witchy comedy. Sterling ensures the romantic conflict operates on both magical and emotional levels - the hex must be broken and the unresolved feelings must be addressed, neither solvable without engaging with the other.

The Graves Glen setting provides atmosphere and community context, with the town's witch population, annual Founder's Festival preparations, and small-town dynamics creating texture around the central romance. Supporting characters include Vivi's cousin Gwyn, whose own story will be told in the second book, and various community members whose presence makes Graves Glen feel inhabited.

Themes of first love's lasting impact, whether people change, the cost of suppressing emotion rather than processing it, magic as metaphor for vulnerability, and finding your way back to something worth keeping run throughout.