Witch's Brew is the first book in The Spellspinners of Melas County series and is an "active fiction" read. I have not read this kind of "choose your path" book before so it was a new experience for me. There are two places at which you, as the reader, must make a choice. The beginning and ending is the same, but the choices you make will affect how the characters get from point A to B. I will be reading it again to follow some other paths to the end!

The book is set in a version of our own world, the geography recognizable. But the world of magic exists alongside humanity, with most never knowing very much about its existence. Witches and warlocks live separately, forbidden to interact with one another. They live very different lives with very different values and priorities. The story is told from the alternating points of view of Logan and Lily, a warlock and a witch. I love that technique because it allows us to really know both sides of the same story.

Logan and Lily are fantastic characters with great voices. Both have fully embraced the worlds they live in, ready and willing to accept anything and everything that comes along with that. Right up until they meet one another and realize that there is something more going on between them. There is a very clear line drawn between good and evil in this book, with Logan coming from the side of evil, but it is impossible not to love him for reasons that unfold over the course of the book.

The mythology is rich, drawing on some real principles, but with so many new elements of its own. There is a lot of of mystery on both sides, secrets and betrayals and so much more. The story grows more and more intense the farther into it you get and there is a fantastic cliffhanger waiting for you at the end...!

Things to love...

--Daisy. Lily's little sister is spunky, sassy and fun!
--The witch's naming. All of the witches are named after flowers, a nice tie-in to the nature worship aspect of witchcraft.
--The ink. It's a warlock thing, but as a lover of tattoos, I like it!
--The cover! GORGEOUS!

Things I wanted more/less of...

--More Daisy. She's hilarious!
--More Melas County!

Some Quotastic Goodness

--Sucking him in, I took a mental picture of his pale face, the almond shape of his eyes, the sharp outline of his jaw. He was beyond hot. Smoking hot. Tree-caught-on-fire hot (Loc. 207).
--"You have a pink car," I deadpanned into his window. "Correction." He grinned. "The band has a pink BUS. We call it the Pink Twinkie (Loc. 1581)."

My Recommendation: This is a really great read! There is a little of everything... love, mystery, intrigue, humor, magic! I gave it 4.5 mugs. ( )

I have owned Witch's Brew for a long time, I got it as a Kindle deal and it has sat on my reader forever, I just never had a chance to read it with other blog tours and books that I was reading. I was given the chance to be on the Spellspinner's tour and was thrilled because now I could read the book that I had been wanting to for some time now AND I was getting the other 2 books in the series as well!

First thing to note is that the Spellspinners books (as stated above) are "Active Fiction" i.e. remember those choose your own adventure books some of us read as kids, well it is kind of like that, only regardless of how you choose you come to the same end, the only difference between the choices is that you get ore of less detail depending on your tastes. SO if you want action ALL THE TIME you can skip over the more informational bits and learn about those thing later in the story, or if you want to know ALL the details, you can read it in that way . I chose both styles depending on where I was in the story, so it was a lot of fun.

Book one begins our introduction into the world of Spellspinners aka witches and warlocks and how they became divided and enemies 100 years prior, not there is a prophecy that may or may not help to reunite them if they can get past their differences.

I really enjoyed this book, but it at times let me asking strange questions, like who the heck people were, there were a lot of flower names, names that start with J and then Lily and Logan (the two L's as I started referring to them as) are the main characters. I also wanted to know more about how the Spinners came to be, and you get more and more of that as you read the other books, but I wanted am overview in book one and it was not really there.

Here Lily and Logan meet, and it is forbidden but also very mysterious and alluring. We learn about some of the background of their worlds and I loved how the book alternated back and forth between their POVs -- small issue though was that when they alternate it is sometimes a reply of what just happened but from the other's POV.

Overall it was a good read, but it took a few chapters to get into the style of the book and writing. ( )

Big review closer to release date, but I LOVED everything about this book. In fact I am reading it over right now, because it has CHOICES! It feels like one of those choose your own adventure books we all read when we were young, but less childish and with higher stakes. The story of the witches was well thought out and great research went into the book about celtic paganism. I can't wait for more. ( )