A Witch in Love by Anne Jane, Summary Automatic translate

Anna Jane’s novel, written in 2019 and first published in 2020, is the second part of the duology about Tanya Vedmina and Oleg Vladyko. Here, the story becomes noticeably more intense than before: alongside the love story, there’s surveillance, old grudges, university rumors, and the search for the man who’s been deliberately targeting Oleg. From the very first pages, Kostya, Tanya’s first love, returns to the action. He flies home and thinks about the girl he’s never been able to forget, recalling their closeness, their trip to the "island of eternal spring," and the moment when he gave her hope, already knowing it would soon be destroyed. This prologue immediately sets the tone for the novel: the past hasn’t disappeared, and Tanya still awaits a meeting with the one who once caused her great pain.

The main storyline continues Tanya and Oleg’s relationship, which began as a game and revenge, but later became genuine. Tanya still speaks harshly, enjoys taking a blow, and readily hides her weakness behind brashness, while Oleg remains composed, somewhat aloof, and demanding, above all, of himself. In their time together, both change: Tanya becomes more honest, and Oleg gradually stops building a wall between himself and others.

Their relationship is complicated by the very context. Oleg teaches at the university, and Tanya is a student there, so any awkward word quickly turns into gossip, and every glance is interpreted as evidence of a forbidden affair. Adding to the tension are studies, exams, and clashes with professors, among whom Savelyev is particularly unpleasant, clearly hostile to Oleg and therefore ready to make Tanya’s life miserable on the eve of exams.

On a mundane level, the romance is sustained by the alternation of ordinary student days and the rare moments of peace when Tanya and Oleg are alone. For Tanya, this is almost a new state: with him, she no longer hunts or feigns feelings, but learns to trust a man who sees her not as a mask, but as a living woman — stubborn, vulnerable, proud, and deeply attached. For Oleg, these encounters also change a lot, because after the death of his parents and long years of inner isolation, he begins to feel the warmth of home again, and even the pre-New Year anticipation he long thought was dead.

The New Year’s plot in the novel serves not as decoration but as contrast. Tanya makes plans, dreams of walks together, a Christmas tree, and simple happiness with Oleg, while he, busy with work and company affairs, allows himself, for the first time in many years, to treat December as a holiday, not just an empty date on the calendar. Against this backdrop, the coming blow feels more poignant, because the characters have time to experience what their peaceful life together could have been like.

At the same time, one of Tanya’s long-standing plotlines — her feud with Vasilina Okladnikova — is also changing. At first, Tanya interacts with her out of curiosity and old anger, trying to understand what’s on her mind, but then she realizes that behind her usual competitive demeanor lies a typical, confused girl with her fears, jealousy, and absurd attempts to retain someone else’s attention. Gradually, the old "enemy number one" mentality begins to blur, and for the first time, Tanya seriously considers that she might at least end the war with Vasilina.

Tanya herself needs this change. She stops seeing people as mere figures in a personal campaign and increasingly acts not out of resentment, but out of genuine emotion. Therefore, the love story here simultaneously becomes a coming-of-age story, where Tanya slowly sheds her childhood habit of winning at any cost and begins to accept the consequences of her actions.

Kostya’s return intensifies this internal conflict. He hasn’t let go of Tanya, cherishes her image as part of his own life, and, in his own way, is convinced that their story isn’t yet over. His appearance is painful for Tanya, because Kostya is connected to her most vulnerable memory: he was once her first great love, and then doomed that relationship to disintegration. Meeting him reveals that the memory of that old feeling is still alive, but no longer controls her as it once did.

On another level, Andrei enters the plot, connected to Ksyusha, Tanya’s sister. At first, he seems like a new face among the heroine’s family, but it later turns out that he was the one following Oleg, a coincidence too suspicious to be dismissed as coincidence. Tanya quickly realizes that behind this apparent simplicity lies a tangled web of trauma, old mistakes, and calculated moves.

Andrei’s storyline is crafted without easy excuses. He has a past of his own, entangled in a severe love addiction, humiliation, and feelings of emptiness, which he later explores even with a therapist. Therefore, he doesn’t become a villain, even though his actions and connections long lead one to suspect the worst.

Meanwhile, pressure on Oleg is mounting on several fronts. He’s struggling in his business, rumors are swirling around him, people with unclear motives are circling around him, and an invisible adversary is acting ever more boldly and intimately. Just before the New Year, this chain of events leads to a tragic conclusion: Oleg finds himself in an extremely dangerous situation, and it’s not just his relationship with Tanya that’s at risk, but his freedom and his very ability to continue living a normal life.

After this, Tanya stops vacillating between doubts and begins to act decisively and precisely. She’s forced to piece together disparate incidents, reexamine who to trust, and reassess Ksyusha, Andrey, Stas, old grievances, and recent oddities that previously seemed random. She clings to Oleg stubbornly, almost fiercely, and it’s precisely this loyalty that, at a critical moment, becomes her most important quality.

The denouement dispels some of the false suspicions and shifts the focus to those truly involved in the dark affair. Oleg is almost free, Andrey is also released, and Denis is officially taken care of. For Tanya, this isn’t just a victory over someone else’s conspiracy, but a test of her feelings: she doesn’t back down when romantic words no longer solve anything.

After the crisis, the characters’ personal perspectives also shift. Tanya is less afraid of her attachment, Oleg stops keeping her at a distance, and the past — Kostya, Vasilina, old humiliations and school fights — no longer seems like a force that can endlessly dictate the present. Even the subplots gain momentum: Ksyusha and Andrey emerge from the dangerous zone of mistrust, and Tanya’s feud with Vasilina no longer defines her entire range of feelings.

The ending is constructed as an open gesture of trust. Before the parachute jump, Oleg unexpectedly proposes to Tanya, and she, stunned, accepts, even managing to demand the promised ring in her own way. Then they jump into the sky together, and this episode brings them to a point where fear still lingers, but more importantly, Tanya knows for sure that she is with someone she trusts completely. The final words about flight and happiness together close the novel as the story of two stubborn people who have endured revenge, mistrust, jealousy, and danger, and have arrived at a mature union.