Hit Me With Your Best Charm

By Lillie Vale
** Publication Date 15 July 2025 **
4 stars


Secret crushes. Secret wishing wells. Inexplicable magic. Prior’s End is full of all these things. 


Seven years ago Nova’s dad went out into the forest looking for his best friend. Neither he nor his best friend ever returned. Nova still ventures into the forest to look for her dad but never gets very far.


To get even with a psychic that has befriended her mother, Nova goes to her tent to confront her. Only Nova gets caught in the tent when her classmate Kiara comes in to ask a question. Nova thinks she’s being funny when she pretends to be Aurora and gives her a phony reading. The next day terrible things start to happen to Kiara. 


One of Kiara’s best friends asks for Nova’s help in finding the secret wishing well to try to turn around Kiara’s luck. Nova agrees, thinking it will be just the two of them. Nova and her very secret crush. When she shows up to the forest, not only is she going hiking with Kiara, but also Kiara’s posse of exes. 


Nova knows her only way out of this is to help Kiara turn around the hex, and maybe in the process she can find what happened to her father. But this won’t be some simple hike and camp in the forest. These six are going to encounter things they never imagined. Hopefully they will all make it out.


Incredible story about trusting your gut and your family. Loved this story with all its weirdness and mythology. The group of friends is very diverse, both racially and sexually. There is some violence and gore, but mostly superficial. It is definitely a tad scary. But all in a really good way.


Lillie Vale has done an amazing job of bringing together the typical ghost story but added a dimension of humanity to it. Nova is just a teenager who still struggles with having lost her dad. Kiara has always been the one who had it all. It makes for a wonderful thread running through the darkness and mirth.