Ruth Warburton

2.5/5 stars. As part of his initiation into the Malleus Maleficorum, 18 year old Luke Lexton is told to pick a name at random from a list of witches. Eyes closed, he chooses 16 year old Rosa Greenwood. The brotherhood of the Malleus Maleficorum gets him a job as a stable boy in her home and he has one month to complete his task of killing her or the brotherhood will kill him.

I thought I was going to like this book much more than I did. But something was missing for me. Though Luke refuses to show more kill Rosa because he's in love with her, I actually don't see that love. There's no spark that I notice. Both Luke and Rosa are desperate people in a desperate place and I would have loved to have read more about that shared aspect of their lives.

This wasn't a bad book, it just wasn't to my taste.

(Provided by publisher) show less

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick & Dirty: In a beautiful romance, Witch Finder explores love, mystery, and magic.

Opening Sentence: Luke lifted his head and sniffed the dusk.

The Review:

Witch Finder tells us about Luke, a new member to a society that hunts and kills witches. Luke has a special ability to see magic, and easily identify those with it, which makes him extremely valuable…and to witches, also extremely dangerous. The assignment that will get him in? Kill Rosa, a show more beautiful redhead being sold to a rich unmarried man to pay off the family’s debt. The only problem is, Rosa seems different from other witches. She’s not heartless, she’s beautiful and daring and kind. But if Luke doesn’t complete this in 30 days he won’t be in the organization, and ritual says that those in it (including his uncle) must kill him.

I immensely enjoyed myself while reading this book. From the start you are dunked into a world shrouded with mystery and swirling with darkness. Luke is an easy character to love, and both his and Rosa’s point of views are used in this novel. It is in many ways similar to The Winner’s Curse, a book everyone has been raving about in the book reviewing world, so if you like one you will like the other. I might note that if you are an animal lover, there is a scene of graphic violence to a little dog — you might not want to open this up if that makes you sick. As well as that there is also a little spousal abuse, and again if this turns you off don’t read.

The world that is home to Witch Finder is described beautifully in great detail. Much like Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling, a secret amount of witches hide effortlessly in previous day London. The big ones call the shots, and the biggest, Sebastian, is about to become Rosa’s husband. Sebastian is a character that is easy to loathe. Arrogant and rude, you rarely see a good side of this toad.

I’ve seen some reviewing websites complain that it’s predictable, but honesty, I loved it enough to not care at all about that. Yes, I could guess what would happen. Yes, I am still a fan. The ending was a perfect and spellbinding end to such an amazing story. My reading experience was not tarnished by this tiny fact.

The novel Witch Finder came out just this month, in early January, and is great for any book lover’s shelf. Rosa is a strong heroine and Luke is just as fabulous. Personally, I love the cover. I know I say that about a lot of books but seriously, girls with red hair plus book covers equal a triumph. Just look at The Selection and The Winner’s Curse!

I hope you check this out, and then we can rave together! I loved this book and was really surprised to see such average reviews on Amazon when my time with it was so valuable. It has a beautiful romance and I loved it overall. Either way, please enjoy!

Notable Scene:

His lips on hers, his hands around her waist, lifting her up, holding her to him. She never wanted him to let go. Her hands were up in his hair, caressing his face, smoothing away the lines and the dust and the pain.

Then she steeled herself and pulled away.

“You have to forget me.”

“I will never forget you,” he said fiercely.

FTC Advisory: Hodder Children’s Books/Hachette Book Group provided me with a copy of Witch Finder. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. show less

This book hooked me right away. The first two scenes, where we meet first Luke and then Rose, immediately engaged me in both protagonists lives. These scenes were tense and mysterious and I felt I got to know both characters. The book continued in the same fast-paced way it started. I was so involved I hardly took any notes! However, despite the excitement and adventure, at the end this book fell a little flat for me.

While the world was fascinating (similar to that in Born Wicked), it show more wasn’t fleshed out very well. For instance, Luke can see witches surrounded by an aura representing their power. That’s interesting and I would have liked to learn something about how it worked. There also weren’t a ton of details given about how the witches’ powers worked. More than that though, my biggest problems were with the villain. He’s basically evil for the sake of being evil and loving power. Oh, and he had a sad childhood. It just wasn’t enough to give him any complexity. Instead we got way more animal cruelty than I thought was necessary to show us that he was a bad person.

The ending was similarly flat. The protagonists never really confront each other about the lies they’ve told one another. They only solve the most immediate of their problems and then decide to go out into the world to face the rest together. It wasn’t even a cliffhanger, where you’re left at the end of some dramatic climax. It was more as though the author just stopped writing. Fortunately, she actually hasn’t stopped writing and there is a second book. Since I did have fun reading this one for most of the book, I’ll actually be quite excited to see if the second book fleshes out the world, the villain, and the main characters’ relationships a bit more. Because really, while it took longer to describe the flaws than the good bits, this certainly was an enjoyable read.

This review first published on Doing Dewey. show less

It took me awhile to get around to writing this review, in part because it took me forever to read the book, and in part because I just felt like I didn't have a lot to say...

It's a very typical YA. Girl moves to small town. Girl sees pretty boy. Boy has a girlfriend (and is dogged by rumors of violence and rages), but girl falls for boy anyway. And (oops) puts a spell on him that makes him lover her, too.  Did I mention the girl is a witch? No. It's okay, she didn't know either until she show more was able to do, um, everything, so it's cool.
We've seen this before.
It's been done.
To death.

And maybe if I was younger and was ever the type of girl to be wooed by insta-lovey swooneyness - I wasn't - this would have won me over. It's a quick read, certainly, so it's not like I had to drag myself from one swooning-and-sighing perilous encounter to the next. Though I guess that's not entirely true: I couldn't for the life of me muster up the desire to pick this up most of the time; took me ages. Partly I think this was because everything felt like a foregone conclusion, so it felt like a waste of time - I knew what was going to happen, so why waste the couple hundred pages getting there? - but I also think it may have felt like a quicker read than it was because when I did pick it up, I sometimes resorted to skimming. I just could not make myself want to read Anna's thoughts. There were times when I just had no choice but to skim through her anxieties and woe-is-mes and flutterings, and just get to the next plot point or bit of dialogue. It was skim or give up, and I chose to skim.

But it just all just feels VERY young, and very almost silly in it's emotions and Mary Sue-ness (Here comes Miss Powers Out the Ass to bungle everything up, and maybe, if she can get it together, save the day). There was just not enough development or slow-burn to anything, so I knew exactly where it was going from page 1. Everything was laid out and obvious. Yes, it's a fantasy, and yes, Winter is an interesting town with a really interesting history. And yes, Anna has powers, and now she also has questions, and those could have all made the book something special, a tale of discovery and and secrets and intrigue. Instead it was very much a book about a girl's inexplicable love for a guy she doesn't know, and then his unfortunately explicable love for her (he's under a spell - and then he's not, but he still super-duper loves her), and it just doesn't ever get past that or turn into anything more than that. I think if this had taken a different turn, if it had delved more into the history of Winter, and had a more slow-slide into Anna's discovery of things, I could have actually liked this a great deal. But it didn't.

Its one saving grace is that it does pick up at the end, and Warburton is not so flowery and sentimental a writer that she won't give her characters legitimate consequences. This is HUGE for me, because when a book has really high stakes and a ton of really crazy super-powery stuff or mega-villains or Good vs Evil, etc., and all of the characters are in danger all the time, I expect something legit to happen. If all the good guys come through unscathed and all the villains get crushed into oblivion or escape with their tails between their legs, Imma be pissed. (And no, for those of you reading this in the UK, I do not mean I'll be drunk, but after all that, I'll want to be.) FORTUNATELY, the last 1/4 of the book or so moves along at a very brisk pace, and actually had some pretty enjoyable moments, and FORTUNATELY, it does end up having some good consequences that made me glad I did stick it out and finish the book.
UNfortunately, I don't think even that is enough to make me want to pick up book 2...

But this will find a rabid, happy audience in young girls and those looking for a light throwaway read. show less