Stupid Magical Love

Book 1: Stupid Love

by Amy Boyles

Genres: Paranormal Romance; Witches; Southern; contemporary romance; magic

Synopsis

For a sassy Georgia farm girl and an uptight city boy, love is a high-stakes bet that can warm a heart—or break it—in this spicy, emotional, and enchanting romance.

Ever since the magic dried up in Mystic Meadows, Rowe Wadley has fallen on hard times. Her piggycorns aren't selling, and the family farm is in foreclosure. Then handsome Pane Maddox comes knocking. His pitch: I'm here to save your farm.

The hottie isn't exactly selfless. His own future is on the line. Competing to become president of a luxury hotel chain, Pane has sixty days to whip a struggling business into shape. Which is okay by Rowe—that means putting the privileged and smug city slicker to work. But Pane never guessed he'd find farm labor so fulfilling, or the spunky country girl so down-to-earth appealing. To Rowe's surprise, she's seeing a whole new side to Pane. His dazzling green eyes aren't bad, either. Soon, sparks fly on the piggycorn farm.

Once this high-stakes bet is over, Rowe knows that Pane is moving on. Though saving the farm is a dream, Rowe fears that now she's about to lose her heart.

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Release date: October 28, 2025

Publisher: Montlake

Print pages: 351

Reader says this book is...: year's top 10 (1)

Sample

Stupid Magical Love

Chapter 1

There’s a saying in my little town just outside of Mystic Meadows, Georgia: Bad luck begets more
bad luck. And if you’re Rowe Wadley, you won’t just attract bad luck—you are bad luck.
Nasty, right? I mean, it must be pretty terrible to be this Rowe Wadley person.
“Today is going to be great,” I announce with gusto, to no one.
Well, “no one” unless you count Buster the Cat.
Buster the Cat is a plump red tabby whose main form of morning exercise is sitting on the
bathroom sink and batting at the sticky notes I read my morning affirmations from.
I pull my dark hair over one shoulder and braid it while repeating the sentence penned on
the wrinkled paper that’s attached to the mirror. Months of shower steam have softened the note and
eaten at the glue, causing it to peel away from the reflective surface. I rub the top back down and
glance at the next affirmation, one sticky note down from the first.
“‘I got this!’” Chest up. Head high. My gaze falls to the final note and the uplifting words on
it. “‘Greatness is within me!’”
I smile. Wide. Feeling the greatness. I’m feeling so much greatness that my chest is going
to explode. Or maybe my bra’s too tight.
“You hear that, Buster? Greatness is within me.”
The cat meows like he doesn’t believe a word.
“Don’t be such a Debbie Downer.” I boop his nose with my finger. “We’ve got this. You’re
going to be my right-hand cat when Mom leaves today. I’ll be counting on you to help feed the pigs
and collect money from the tourists.”
All the tourists I’ll somehow pull out of my butt, that is, since we literally don’t get a single
one. Not like we used to.
But hey! I got this! “It’s just gonna be you and me.”
Buster the Cat meows again.
I mock-gasp at his perfectly normal feline tone. “Don’t even pretend that you don’t love the
pigs like I do. I see how you look at them when you think no one’s paying attention. You love their
sweet little pink snouts and their tiny little hooves almost as much as you love Meow Mix with cream
on top.”
The cat stares at me as if he does not, in fact, adore livestock.
Don’t let him fool you. He’s a big ole puddy tat around them. “Your secret’s safe with me.
No one will ever suspect how you really feel—undying love and all.”

He stretches and jumps down from his perch, terminating our morning talk. And just when I
was getting warmed up.
As the cat exits the room, tail swishing, my gaze drifts to the window. Outside, the faded-
red barn sags like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The gray fence surrounding the place isn’t much
better. It looks like it’s made of splintered toothpicks instead of thick planks that are constantly having
to be propped back up thanks to the rotting wood.
I sigh. Six months. I’ve got six months to get this place fixed up so that when Mom returns,
she’ll see a whole new farm—one brimming with life instead of one dying the agonizingly slow death
of a Victorian-era courtesan succumbing to tuberculosis.
This is gonna be fun.
I head downstairs, grabbing hold of the banister my grandfather hand-carved, and whip
around in a half circle, sliding into the kitchen in my socked feet.
The smell of fresh coffee fills the room, which is covered in wallpaper that features blue-
feathered roosters. Matching porcelain cookie jars with removable rooster heads are sprinkled
across the counter and built-in desk. Not only that, but rooster place mats sit on the table beneath
plates stamped with, you guessed it, more roosters.
The entire room suffers from a fowl explosion.
“Good morning,” my mom says, sweeping in beside me, wavy, gray hair billowing behind
her like a cloud. She’s wearing her bright-orange kaftan. A moonstone necklace dangles from her
neck, and shining silver rings twinkle on her fingers.
“Morning,” I say as she pours a cup of coffee. “Today’s the big day. You excited?”
With her back to me, she finishes pouring and shoves the carafe into place. “I’m not going.”
I must be hearing things. I tug on my ear and laugh. “That’s funny. I thought you said you’re
not going.”
Mom turns around and stares at me, hard. “I’m not.”
The laugh stutters and dies in my throat. Then, to add insult to injury, a gob of my own
saliva strangles me.
I finish choking and wheeze out, “What do you mean, you’re not going? Mom, this is what
you’ve been wanting for ages. You and Bill are heading out on the road. You’ve been dying to follow
the Happy Clams around the country since before I was born. I should know. You’ve told me this
like a thousand times.” She glances bashfully at her feet. “Mom, I love you. You need to do this for
yourself. Besides, you’ve been planning this—your dream—for a year.”
Her eyes flash up. “But who’s going to take care of you?”
“I don’t need to be taken care of,” I say defensively, slumping onto one of the frayed chairs
that surround the farm table. “I need for you to go and do this. I mean, don’t you think you’ve been
through enough?”
She gives me a pitying look as if I’m keeping a secret only she knows the truth about.
I ignore her expression. “Is this because of Dad? Is that what’s brought on this change of
heart?”
“No, no.” She presses one hip against the counter. “No. It has nothing to do with Dad. I just
. . . it’s just . . .” She releases a long exhale. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Oh God. From the look on her face, it must be bad. “Are you sick?” My chest tightens so
hard I can barely breathe. “You’re not sick, are you?”
“No.”
Air rushes from my lungs in relief. Thank the Lord. I can’t lose another parent. Losing one
was enough to last me a lifetime. “Then what is it? Is it me?”
I bet that’s it. My mom still thinks I’m sixteen and smoking pot in the back of the pickup.
Why do parents never think you grow up? If anyone’s smoking pot now, it’s her. For goodness’ sake,
she’s leaving to follow her favorite jam band around the country. If that doesn’t scream CBD-fueled
midlife crisis, what does?
“Mom, I’m perfectly capable of taking care of the farm. I know you’re worried that I can’t
handle it, but I’ve been in charge since Dad died. I’ll be fine,” I say staunchly. “I don’t need help.”

Besides that, I have plans. Things I’m going to do. Things she always says are too
expensive, can’t be done—all of that. There’s always an excuse.
“I know you don’t need any help, hon. It’s not that. It’s . . .” Her gaze swivels around until it
finds the roosterclock on the wall. “Oh, would you look at the time? There’s something important
happening upstairs.”
She moves to go past me, but I grab the giant cuff of her kaftan. “You’re not getting away
that easy. What is it? What’s going on?”
She presses the back of her hand to her forehead in resignation. “Well, you see—”
Just as she’s about to word-vomit all over me, the phone trills on the wall. When I release
her to rise and grab it, Mom takes the opportunity to shuffle out of reach. “We’re not done with this
conversation,” I say sternly.
She looks relieved as she slips out of the room. “Of course not. We’ll finish it . . . later.”
I scowl at the wall she disappeared behind and bring the slick-surfaced, puke-green phone
to my ear. “Hello?”
Heavy breathing answers. What now? A phone-sex call? Isn’t it a bit early for that? It’s
probably one of the Collins boys. Everybody knows all five of them are jonesing for girlfriends. But if
those teenagers think they have a shot at twenty-seven-year-old me, their mama’s going to get an
earful.
The person finally speaks in a thick Southern accent. “Rowe. Wadley.”
Right. I may have forgotten to mention that I’m Rowe Wadley—the bad luck in my town.
And my bad luck just got worse.
Because the sound of that voice makes the last slice of happiness die inside me.
Unfortunately, this is not the Collins boys attempting to woo me with early-morning, bad-breath
phone sex, and now I kinda wish it was.
I twirl the cord around my finger. “Why, Sally Ray, to what do I owe the displeasure of a call
so early in the morning?”
“Cut the crap, Rowe. Your stupid pigs are on my property.”
“No, they’re not. I mended the fence yesterday.”
I glance out the window above the kitchen sink. The sun breaks through the trees,
smearing cotton candy and blue raspberry across the horizon. Cardinals sing. The piggies graze in
the yar—
Wait a minute.
The pigs are not grazing. They’re not even in sight.
They’re not rolling around on the scraggly grass that lives in bundles of tufts, nor are they
stampeding past the tractor, which has hay creeping out around the tires.
There’s not a piggy in sight.
I groan. Great. Just great.
“You don’t see them, do you?” Sally says victoriously.
My jaw clenches. What a way to start the day—first Mom and now this. “I don’t appreciate
you calling my pigs ‘stupid.’ They are highly intelligent.”
“Who gives a crap? If you don’t get your ass over here right now, I’m going to shoot ’em.
One by one. Little piggy by little piggy.”
She wouldn’t! But then again, Sally very well would. “Don’t you touch one hair on their
heads,” I fume.
“I got rights. They’re on my property, destroying it.”
There is a special place in hell for murderers and Sally Ray. She is the blight on my potato,
the absolute worst person in the world. Imagine a small Southern woman with big hair and an even
bigger attitude, and you’ve almost got Sally Ray. Now add evil villain onto that, and you’ve got her
pegged for sure.
My gaze skims the room, looking for my dad’s old boots. As if my thoughts were heard, an
ivy vine shoots out from under the floorboards, scoops up the boots from where they sit on the other
side of the room, and deposits them beside me.

I jam my feet into them and say to Sally, “If you hurt even one of my drove, I swear you’ll
regret it for the rest of your life.”
“Like hell I will, Rowe. I’ll be eating bacon for months.”
I suck air. “You wouldn’t dare!”
“Just try me,” she says nastily. “If you don’t get these damn piggies off my property in five
minutes, they’ll become feed for my unis.”
She pronounces the word uu-nee.
“Making bacon’s a new low even for you, Sally.”
“You don’t know low, then, Rowe.”
The line goes dead, and I have no doubt she’ll keep her promise and start shooting in less
than five minutes.
“Who was it?” my mom shouts from upstairs.
“Sally Ray! The pigs are out!”
Mom’s face appears on the stair landing. Her wavy, gray hair is now pulled back, and her
necklace dangles over the railing. “You need me to call the sheriff?”
“No! We don’t need the law getting involved.” Last time they showed up, we nearly got fined
for the pigs being out. Not our fault, I explained. Bobby John, the one and only deputy in town who
does anything, barely let us off the hook. I had to promise him it would never happen again.
And now it is happening, it is very much happening, and Sally’s about to make bacon.
My arms shoot out. “Don’t call anybody! I’ll be right back.”
I dash onto the back porch and head straight for the bag of feed. The pigs won’t come
home by themselves. They’ll take one look at me, stick their pink snouts in the air, and prance like
ballerinas in the opposite direction. Which means I have to lure them.
But the fifty-pound brown sack is down to crumbs. Crap. Why don’t we have their feed?
Why are we out? Mom was supposed to buy it.
There’s no time to point fingers.; I’ve got piggies to save. I stuff what looks like cereal
crumbs in my pockets and charge out.
I sprint across the two-lane highway and climb over Sally’s pristine white wooden fence.
Just before I’m clear, my jeans catch on a nail. I yank to pull free, but the fabric rips.
I hiss as the nail rakes across my inner thigh. When I’m over the fence, I inspect the
damage. A triangle of denim has been torn away, and there’s an angry red scratch swelling on my
thigh.
Ouch! And dang! These were my good jeans.
“Just great.”
I race past the sign that reads DANCING TRAILS FARM and run to the top of the hill,
where the house sits. I’m winded, and my side’s killing me. I pause just long enough to rest my arm
on the side of the house. That is, until I hear a—
BOOM.
Fear rushes through my bloodstream, making my heart convulse.
Oh no. Sally’s killed one of them!
“Stop! I’m here!”
I wave my hands in the universal sign of surrender as I plow down the hill and finally get a
good look at what’s going on.
Sally’s in her pasture, raising the gun and kicking the air in an attempt to frighten the pigs,
who are paying her absolutely no mind, not even after the shotgun blast. That was apparently a
warning shot, as no piggies have been injured.
Thank God.
Behind her, more than a dozen unicorns watch the scene with silky black eyes. They stand
tall and magnificent, white coats shimmering in the early-morning sun. Shoulder muscles ripple.
Delicate golden horns dazzle. Right on cue, a breeze ripples through their rainbow manes, making
the creatures look picture perfect.
I can’t help but stare at them for a brief moment before my gaze falls on the piggies. As
opposed to the unicorns, they are not picture perfect. Their spindly legs and round bellies make

them look like potatoes stuck on toothpicks—potatoes that are currently invading the unicorns’ feed
trough like ants at a picnic.
This is Sally’s beef, and I can see why.
Almost two dozen of them surround the feed bin. Several piggies scramble to jump into it,
launching themselves like dogs trying to land on a couch. Most don’t make it. One, however, does
catch the edge with its front legs. The pig struggles to climb inside, but it can’t get its hind legs up
under it. In the end, it slips, landing on its back atop the grass below before flipping over and trying
again.
Some pigs never learn.
Others have been more successful in their jumping attempts. A few stand in the trough,
foraging the feed like they’re plowing farmland, and in the process, nosing it over the rim. Grain falls
in a glittery shower that creates small piles on the dewy grass. There, the piggies who’ve given up
trying to get in are greedily munching. Eager to eat as much as possible, half a dozen of them
shoulder and shove one another aside, accidentally bumping the trough.
The trough takes a hit and rocks back onto the fence. Neither the pigs nor Sally notice that
the contraption is balancing precariously.
“Sally,” I yell, racing toward them.
She looks up just as the pigs slam into the trough again, this time from the opposite side.
And that’s all it takes to bring the whole thing down.
The piggies squeal in fright, racing to get out of the way as the wooden bin falls. The ones
inside the trough are smart enough to stay put. When it hits the ground, they roll out, riding the feed
like surfers as a wave of grain spills out onto the grass. I groan as a piggycorn slides on her rump
atop the grain, coming to an abrupt halt when she bumps into my foot.
She blinks up at me, looking adorable and guilty at the same time.
“Tallulah, what have y’all done?”
Sally marches toward me, glowering. Her unicorns stamp and blow in annoyance.
Meanwhile, the piggies are now free to eat as much feed as possible, seeing as how it’s now all over
the ground. None of my drove are hurt, and they snort happily as they gorge themselves.
Sally is still waving the gun.
“Don’t you do anything stupid,” I snap.
She lifts the barrel, pointing it to the sky, and yells, “They destroyed my property. Those
pigs ain’t nothing more than a nuisance. The whole lot of them should be made into sausage!”
My heart’s racing as I reach the rest of the drove. “Y’all stop eating that and come home.
Look, I brought your feed.”
The pigs recognize my voice and look up. Tallulah, who’s right on my heels, is the smallest
and my personal favorite. She takes a step toward me and presses her snout in my hand, sniffing.
Her face drops enough that the small golden horn protruding from her head brushes my arm. Then
she looks up and returns to the mess of feed.
Which I now recognize as the piggies’ favorite.
“What gives, Sally? Why do you have the piggycorns’ food? That’s why they’re here.” I
throw up my hands. “They probably smelled it from across the road. You know how good their noses
are.”
Sally pulls off her ballcap and rakes a hand through her messy blond hair. Her face is all
sharp angles, like she only eats protein, and as much as I’d like to say she’s ugly, Sally’s the kind of
girl-next-door pretty that’s enviable.
She snickers. “My unis like it, too. There’s no law that says I can’t give the unicorns the
same feed.”
I glance up at the pasture full of unicorns—beautiful, majestic creatures that are as
awesome in person as they are in fairy tales, even if they aren’t born with magic anymore. Even
powerless, they’re still more popular as pets than piggycorns.
I should know. Sally mentions it every time I see her.
I’m surprised she doesn’t say it now.

“You gotta get these piggycorns out of here, Rowe. I’ve got a family coming to pick out their
uni in an hour. If they see these nasty swine, they’ll turn and leave. No one buys stupid piggies
anymore—not since the price of unicorns came down.”
Oh, wait. I spoke too soon. There she went, getting in her dig. And it’s barely even six a.m.
But she’s right. It used to be that everyone wanted a piggycorn for a pet. They’re very
doglike in demeanor—friendly, lovable. They’re the perfect companion animal. Or at least, they were,
back in the early days, when magic still flourished in our town. But now the magic is gone, having up
and left for reasons unknown, and as the luster faded, so, too, did interest in piggycorns.
I move to fix the trough, but she waves me off. “I’ll do it. You’ll probably just break it worse.”
When I scoff, she adds, “All you’re doing is catching flies with your mouth hanging open like that,
when you should be catching swine and vacating my property.”
“Fine, I’ll get them out of Your Highness’s way,” I say, snatching the ballcap from her head.
“What’re you doing? Give me back my hat.”
I grin at her. “You said you wanted the piggycorns gone. Well, I’m getting them gone, Sally.
You never said how, and seeing that you have their favorite food, I need some of it so that they’ll
come with me.”
I fill the hat with feed and push it under the piggies’ noses. “Come on, y’all. Let’s go. We
know when we’re not wanted.”
They slowly start to follow, tails swishing, grunts of happiness filling the air.
Sally sneers. “Never mind. Keep the hat. I’ve already taken something of yours, anyway.”
Her eyes slide to the mammoth red Tundra stationed in the driveway. My heart pound-
pound-pounds against my chest at what she’s implying.
She doesn’t mean the truck. Sally’s referring to its owner, Luke.
I force myself to smile tightly. “You’ll find your hat in the mailbox. Unlike you, Sally, I don’t
steal other people’s property.”
Her jaw drops as I lead the piggycorns off.
So yes, piggycorns. It’s a creature that is exactly what it sounds like: a pig with a unicorn
horn. They’re small, about the size of a pug, and are also adorable. Many people love them—except
for Sally. The only thing she loves is money and unicorns. Maybe money more.
Definitely money more.
The pigs understand we’re going home, and they prance out in front of me, crossing the
road as they head toward the farm.
Sally calls out, “Hey, Rowe!”
I turn to see her standing on top of the hill, fists on her hips, lips twisted diabolically.
“Won’t be long until I don’t have to worry about you and those stupid piggycorns much
longer anyway.”
Then she smirks and storms off, the shotgun tucked under her arm.
What is she talking about?
I’m about to call her back when the sound of screeching tires grabs me by the throat. A
murder of crows lifts from an oak tree as I turn around, just in time to see a black SUV heading
straight for my pigs. ...