In "A Spell for Midwinter’s Heart," author Morgan Lockhart whisks the reader away into a small mountain town filled with magic. This book hits all the marks I want from a romance for the holiday season: cozy, fantastical, and filled with eclectic characters and local business owners rising up against the industrial complex.

Our protagonist, Rowan Midwinter, is heading home from Southern California to Elk Ridge — the Pacific Northwest mountain town she’s been avoiding since her beloved grandma passed. At her mother’s behest, she cannot miss the winter solstice and annual festival.

As it happens, her connecting flight is canceled and she’s left to make the drive up the mountain with a man she hasn’t seen since high school. Gavin McCreery has been her competition since childhood, but now he’s her only option to get home in time for the solstice via the car rental his wealthy father secured for him at the last moment.

Rowan reluctantly endures a long drive up a snowless mountain with the man she hates — and is undeniably attracted to — all the while suppressing her innate need to use her magic.

Once home, her mother’s scheme becomes clear; Rowan must complete the coven’s circle of witches needed to cast a spell to make snow fall. The snowless mountain is a recipe for disaster come spring and summer. Without water runoff, they’ll be facing an environmental catastrophe. But Rowan hasn’t used magic since she lost control 8 years ago.

Turns out summoning snow is the tip of the iceberg for Elk Ridge. A big bad corporation has been hunting for its latest gentrification project, and Gavin McCreery’s dad has the deeds they want to buy. With no other choice but to embrace her magic, Rowan sets off on a clumsy yet passionate mission to save the town, all the while realizing her hatred for Gavin might be rooted in something a lot like love.

This mystical, magical town isn’t all fantastical elements that you might see in a fantasy, suspended in an unmarked time in the past. They’re dealing with modern issues like climate change impacting the necessary snow melt that will provide water come spring and summer. They also need to raise costs in their annual Winter Fest to offset inflation, but know their loyal tourists visit because of the low prices.

I’m used to fantasy novels expressing deeply political issues through storytelling, but this was done in a charming, cozy way that felt more "White Christmas" than "Hunger Games." If only Bing Crosby could show up and solve all their problems through song.

Alas, he is not an option, so it’s up to Rowan to save the small, culturally diverse town from the big city industrialists looking to replace that diversity with a monoculture consisting of only mainstream celebrations and greetings of Merry Christmas.

There were surprisingly somber moments in a largely lighthearted story of using magic for good. Rowan losing her grandmother — her magical soulmate — hit particularly hard. Without her, Rowan questioned who she was. Did she stop being a granddaughter when her grandmother was gone?

I loved that the magical elements of the story increased as I read. Rowan’s resistance to her destiny kept magic at bay for herself and the reader, but as she leaned into the town, her past and her coven, the magic began to swell. By the end of the book, I felt as lost in the fantasy elements as I was in the plot.

If this book could get me in the holiday spirit during a heat wave, it’ll surely have you singing a holiday classic by the end.