"Witchcraft Is Her Family's Business.
No One Quits The Family And Lives To Tell About It."

When I read this description, I couldn't wait to read this book. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to my expectations. Jax is a witch who wants to live a normal life, and since she can't do that in her coven (because they are straight up evil), she runs away. She goes to a small town up in the mountains of North Carolina, after leaving a false trail for her family to follow, because she knows that they won't let her just leave. She enrolls herself in high school and immediately meets Keller, a supernatural hunter. Here's where I have my first problem with this book - the dreaded instalove. Within a few days of meeting, they are inseparable and are falling in love. This is a pet peeve of mine, I'll admit. The characters (including Toni, Keller's cousin and Jax's new best friend) are likeable, but I would have liked a bit more time to get to know them before they started in on their romance. It made the story feel rushed. When the book deals with the supernatural aspects of the story, it was really enjoyable, but I had a hard time getting past the all consuming romance between Jax and Keller that really didn't make any sense because again, it was just too rushed. The book was a quick read, though, because it moved so fast.

In summary, I enjoyed the supernatural aspects of this book but can't say the same for the romantic aspects of it. I would be open to reading the next book in the series, though, to see if it fleshes out the characters more fully.

3/5 stars. ( )

Check out this review and two teasers here: http://frommetoyouvideophoto.blogspot.com/2012/04/feasted-on-coven-series-book-1... ( )

3 ½ Stars

White Witch is the first book in the Coven Trilogy by Trish Milburn.

All witches are bad and use dark magic, they use their power to control and hurt humans, but Jax is different, she doesn’t want to use her dark power and hurt people, her only option to evade her future is to escape her family’s coven and do whatever is needed to avoid being caught by them. She knows if she is caught she is going to have the same fate her mother had, a slowly and painful death by her father’s hand.

After months of planing Jax is able to escape. Leaving fake trails to Alaska she settles in a little town in North Carolina. The only thing Jax wants is to go to school, have friends, maybe to date somebody, all in all just to have a normal life. Everything is going well until the day she runs into hunter while taking a walk in the forest, this guy is not any hunter, but one specialized in killing paranormal beings, those includes witches as Jax. Jax is able to escape him before he notices her but she is not that lucky during her first day at school when she runs into him, he is the cousin of her new best friend, Toni.
Jax knows the last thing she should be is attracted to a hunter but there is something about Kellar that is impossible for her to deny.
Jax will not have any problem passing as a normal girl if she doesn’t use her magic. The only telltales of her heritage are her unbelievable good looks, super strength and speed. She can’t change her looks but she can control what she does to pretend to be normal. Also under any circumstances she should use her magic, the moment she uses her power her family will be able to find her, using her power is like lighting a beacon light saying “I’m here”. But this is easier say than done, when somebody she cares is in danger she is forced to use her power to save him/her. Now her friends including Kellar know what she is and it’s a just matter of time for her family to show up and find her. The decision to be made is to stay put and fight for what she wants or leave before it’s too late for her and her new friends.

Despite the very stereotypical characters (the incredibly beautiful heroine, the dreamy hero, the funny and weird best friend, the mean and jealous queen bee of the school and the very evil father/villain) I can say I enjoyed White Witch. Even though I would have prefer and not so perfect heroine I liked Jax and is was easy to understand and to connect with her desire to be normal. Keller was nice, I liked that regardless of the “love at first sight” it took sometime for him to come to terms that Jax was a witch, that made him feel more real.
Toni is one of my favorite characters, she is strong, understanding and caring, she also brought the laughs to the story.

White Witch is a fast paced, fast read book with an interesting premise. There is not a dull moment in the story and the background story about the witch hunt in Salem made of the story a more engaging one. The end is not properly a cliffhanger but one that will leave you wanting to get your hands in the next installment (not yet release) of this series, Bane.

I would recommend this book to YA lovers who like witches and paranormal stories. White Witch was my first book by Mrs. Milburn; I’m looking forward to the end of this year for the release of the next installment, Bane. ( )

It has been a while since I read these books - from memory, characters inspire a better than average level of sympathy, pretty good development
overall 75% (needs review to verify) ( )

This is yet another book I got from Netgalley to review. I got drawn by the cover and description, because the coven thing really gets to me as fiction reading. Anyway, I liked the story, but the characters were very shallow. There was only kissing and fear and that's about it.

So this is the story of 16-year old Jax who escaped her power-thirsty witch coven in the hopes that they won't ever find her. Because they're dark and deadly. They're murderers. And all she wants is to be normal. Well, that's not exactly on the list. She escapes her family, only to stumble upon hunters, dark powers and love that could take away her powers forever.

I think that there were extensive descriptions and inner dialogue when there shouldn't have been. It felt like Jax was mostly talking to herself than looking outside of herself. There was so much telling, that the showing kind of got disregarded. Still, I liked the zing of her inner voice, although at times it felt overdone.

What I really didn't like was the abundance of misspellings and all sorts of grammar mistakes. There were repetitive substitutions (ex. attack for attic), words that didn't mean what they were supposed to, and basic misspellings (blonde for blond).

It kind of felt like a teenager wrote the book without the consecutive help of an editor. The book has potential and could be improved, but it might be a little late for that.

The characters:

*Jax - she was supposed to be the strong one, even though the fear of her coven was supposed to somehow make her weak. Well, in truth, she was strong, but she was also uncontrolled, and that fear didn't quite get through to me. I read it almost at every page, but it was just that, a word on a page.

*Keller - was his name supposed to give the reader an association with, say, 'killer'? Because it would totally fit, even though the guy didn't really kill anything. He was supposed to be a supernatural hunter, yet we never saw that part of him and I think we should have. There was just a vague mention of it, and a scene that could've been developed well, but wasn't. The guy only wanted to kiss and cuddle once he got over his scruples that hey - Jax is a witch!

*Egan - I think he was the most down-to-earth person in this whole novel. He knew when to get dragged in and when to pull himself out. But hearing how swoon worthy he was didn't really make him so.

I don't think I'd be eager to read the next installment, but then again, the author might have improved her writing by then, so we shall see. ( )