Review #402
I gave this historical fantasy a 4.5/5 stars. It felt like a dark Pride and Prejudice with paranormal bits thrown in and a large mix of family drama.
I have a personal pet peeve for books that start with “It was…” unfortunately it’s not something I’ll apologize for. But anyways… The first sentence is “It was the Bishop boy who started it all.” Do you think that’s a hook first sentence?
So ever since an incident as a child, Lydia has to keep it a secret that she has some sort of powers. What are they?
Is this a paranormal genre with ghosts? What does the creepy message on the mirror mean?
Hester Fox does a great job of John’s exchanges with Emeline to make him likable.
Ew Cyrus is the worst.
I love how realistic the sister dynamics feel
Well chapter 12’s events were unexpected.
I was hoping for some sort of magical miracle in chapter 13 because now the beats of the novel feel off and the pacing will be super slow because a huge chunk of the next part of the book should be devoted to grieving so I’m unsure how this will all work out.
End of chapter 14… WHAT! Oh my!! … WHAT?!?
At the halfway mark I’m very glad we learned more of John’s past since this is so character driven.
Why doesn’t her mom support her garden?
Catherine is so terrible. Ugh.
So, yes Lydia has some agency finally, but with 100 pages left to go of the story I’m wishing she has had more and or needs to take action into her own hands very soon for this to come together.
The intensity finally ramped up in the last 50 pages which I’m thankful for. I wish “witch” wasn’t in the title because since she didn’t find out who she was until the end of the book I wish we, as the reader, didn’t go into it already knowing.