From Goodreads: When teen witch Ivy MacTavish changes a lizard into her date for a Halloween dance, everything turns to chaos. And when no one is powerful enough to transform him back except Ivy, it sparks the rumor: Like father, like daughter. Ivy has heard it all before – that her father, who left when she was seven – was involved with the darkest of magic.

Making the rumors worse, someone uses an evil spell book to bring back two of history’s most nefarious killers. Ivy’s got a simple plan to set things right: find the real dark spell caster, steal the book, and reverse the spell. No problem! But she’ll have to deal with something more dangerous than murderous spirits that want her and her friends dead: the school’s resident bad boy and hotter-than-brimstone demon, Nick Marcelli. Nick’s offering Ivy more than his help with recovering the missing book – he’s offering her a way to ditch her scaly reputation as a lizard-lover. Demons are about as hard to handle as black magic, and as Ivy soon discovers, it’s going to take more than a lot of luck and a little charm if she wants to survive long enough to clear her status as a dark witch, get a warm-blooded boyfriend, and have her former date back to eating meal worms before the week’s end.
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Muto has written a beautiful debut novel that will charm the hearts of readers both young and old.  From the very beginning, the novel draws the reader in as Ivy’s life quickly spins out of control when she changes Spike, her friend’s pet lizard, into a human for what is supposed to be an evening of fun.  The daughter of a dark magician, Ivy is able to delve deeper into magic than is normal for a teen her age and, therefore, is regarded as potentially dangerous by those in her town, especially after the lizard fiasco.

I really enjoyed this book.  There is mystery, intrigue, suspense, and romance all packed into this wonderful novel, gluing the reader to the pages as the non-stop action ensues. I thought the idea of regulars and kindred people living side by side was an ingenious idea and really added to the story.  The fact that vampires, witches, werewolves, demons, and regular everyday people all live together in the same community is enchanting and reminds me of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, which I love, but Muto’s novel is a much cleaner, YA friendly read. 

Muto is a very talented writer, fleshing out all her characters and their struggles as they work together to try and stop the murderers set loose upon their town by an unknown foe through a book of dark magic.  Throughout the novel, Ivy continually grows, coming to terms with her fears, though she must ultimately decide between her friends and the powers of the dark arts given to her through The Book of Lost Souls.  I highly recommend this novel for all ages and cannot wait for the next book in the series!  Four and a half stars!

I recieved a copy of this novel from the author in exchange for an honest review.