Kimberly Patton

~~Reviewed by Toby Palevsky Smith of Toby's Nerd-Cave Library~~
Thank you to the Librarything Early Reviewers Club, and the Author, Kimberly Patton, for providing me with a free Autographed ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.
***Trigger Warnings for Domestic Violence, Attempted Suicide, Child Murder, and Sexual Assault***
**Review May Contain Spoilers!!**
A Medieval style cottagecore novel brimming with ancient magic, forbidden loves, and strong bonds of Sisterhood. The imagery the show more narrative conjures up is simply breathtaking in the descriptions of the natural landscape, and pulls you into the story almost immediately. There are some quite dark scenes that surprised me at the very beginning, but I see that they were necessary for the plot, and setting the tone for certain characters. The spoken dialogue feels a bit stiff and formal to me, even for this time period, and I think it would flow better if the author had used more natural conjugations and speech patterns.
As the Guardian Witches, Mathilda and her coven of sister witches must protect the people of the village, and the nature of the forest, and maintain the balance between Light and Darkness. They need to hide their magic and true natures from the public since the Church is still burning witches at the stake in this time period. I did like that there was not too much emphasis on romance, but still the five women must conceive a child within the same year in order to continue their magical lines. I found the fertility spell to be a very interesting concept. There are some good romantic scenes though, somewhat flowery and tasteful (excepting the scene of SA).
The plot gets more twisted the deeper you get into the story, but the overall effect of the book was pretty cozy, despite the evilness of Cassandra. I honestly think she could have been written to be even more insane, but I think her eventual character arc was pretty clear the moment we learned that she was Mathilda’s half sister and took after their father, who had murdered both of their mothers with his black magic.
I did not know going into this book that it is actually a Prequel to Patton’s debut novel, “The Knowing”. Now having started from the prequel, I am very curious to see how this universe unfolds in the future now that I know its origins. show less

I received this as part of the LT early review program and want to thank the publisher and author for the gifted copy.

Let me start by saying I really enjoyed the general premise and plot points in the story. Anything with healing magic is right up my alley. I also loved the conflict with dark magic and the battle between the half sisters. Unfortunately, the writing itself, while technically proficient, felt both a little too flowery and formal for my own personal tastes. If it had just been show more a bit grittier or natural, I would have raced through this one. All in all, I think many readers will enjoy the story show less

While this was not badly written perse, I did find several parts of the story to be contradictory as though the author had not fully mapped out the story. The plot had great potential but unfortunately it fell short as everything was just so very predictable and not in the stereotypical fashion but rather in that the characters make decisions that seem to make no sense but is just the easiest option for the author to continue the story. All the characters are pretty flat and do not change show more from their first appearance which is sad cause they had plenty of opportunities to grow at least a little as one does when growing up. The magic comes naturally to the characters (despite the mothers saying they would need to learn) so it was really quite boring from my perspective. All in all I found it hard to get to the end of the story and was just really disappointed with the overall story. show less

Mathilde's father has turned to dark magic, killing people without a second thought. Her mother's generation of witches deals with him, but that leaves Mathilde's half sister, Cassandra, who also wrecks death and disease without a second thought or her and her fellow witches to contend with. The story follows the 5 women of Mathilde's coven though losing their mothers and becoming mothers themselves and coming into their magic. The plot is not bad, but the magic seems to come easily with no show more learning curve, and the characters seem a little flat. There is also no use of contractions in the dialog which leads to it sounding a bit formal and stilted. All in all, not a bad read, but kind of simply written. show less