An Amateur Witch’s Guide to Murder

A wannabe witch tries to break a curse on a clueless client in this laugh-out-loud debut, for fans of queer romantic fantasy by T. J. Klune and Tamsyn Muir.

Mateo Borrero has 99 problems—and all of them hinge on his missing bruja mother and the demon she trapped inside his body.

Mateo’s mother forbade him from ever using magic, but now that she’s gone, magic’s his only marketable skill, and he’d really like an exorcism—which costs money he doesn’t have. What’s the harm in making a quick buck by calling himself an Occult Specialist and chanting a few half-remembered spells in his crappy Spanish?

Enter Topher, a naive nepo baby with a curse that keeps killing people around him. Most importantly, he’s rich and too clueless to clock that Mateo—and his (absolutely-not-the-assistant) astral-projecting best friend Ophelia—have never actually had a client before. Lifting Topher’s bad luck curse should be simple, but as luck would have it, nothing is simple, and Topher–who Mateo sort of, kind of likes–might be at the center of a deadly magical conspiracy.

To make matters worse, the more magic Mateo does, the stronger the demon inside him grows and the more he wants to eat people. But would caving to the urges of an ancient evil really be that bad if it helps him get a payday?

Legends and Lattes meets A Grim Reaper’s Guide to Catching a Killer in this hilarious and charming queer romantic fantasy readers won’t want to miss.

A Novel Hardcover (October 14, 2025)

by K. Valentin