Posted by I received this via audiobook a while ago. I have been pining for ARC audiobooks since forever and when I finally get them I end up dropping the ball entirely. I got a new job in October and it took over my life, and it was October was when I was given all these audiobooks by Orbit (which I deeply appreciate). I’m just now getting back into the reviewing swing of things and I really needed to go back and address these audiobooks I was given.
The opening to this book grabbed my attention hard. I was so fucking stoked to see where it was going since it’s from the point of view of a witch who has to burn her sister to death so that her sister can ross over. Penny and her sisters are members of the Thorn Witches who are bound to Death. There are all sorts of Witches like the Ember Witches, Tide Witches, Ore Witches, but they’re all being oppressed by the same person, but none more so than the Thorns. It’s a horrible, horrible existence. To cross the veil you must burn. You can’t be sedated, you must feel all of it, and you can’t scream. It’s just sheer carnage from what it sounds like, and to make it worse, each time the Witch is revived and crosses the veil back to the world of the living, they have left a piece of their soul in the afterlife. Slowly, over time, the Witches lose their souls and their sense of personality. Those who love to paint, stop. Those who used to giggle and laugh are now sullen. Those who were musicians are now silent. It’s a death by a thousand deaths. You can also die permanently if you cross the veil and aren’t careful, you can’t look back. There are wraiths beyond the veil and they can kill you, and it’s not uncommon for those who are burned not to come back. Each time a Witch lights a match to send her sister to the beyond, they don’t know if they will come back.
The Warden is the man who controls all of the Witches, and is trying to take over the rest of the world from the sound of it. He’s stripped all the villages around his kingdom and tried to weasel out all of the Witches so they can be under his control. I did find the Warden to be the least compelling part of this story since there was not a lot of nuance to his character. He was the Big Bad and that’s just that, he was the antagonist to hate but there wasn’t a lot of background on how he came to power, how he holds onto it, what his motivations are et cetera.
I started to lose interest when there was too much page time being taken up by UST. Penny has two different romantic interests, and since I don’t know if it’s spoilery to talk about or not, I will air on the side of caution and not talk specifics. That said, Penny has been deprived of potential love interests her whole life due to the suppression of the Witches. Death Walkers aren’t allowed to have kids or get married — they aren’t even allowed to leave their tiny village until they’re 21 or older. Penny’s grandmother is suffocatingly strict and cold and was almost a secondary antagonist. It could be because she’s left so much of her soul beyond the veil that she’s turned into a bitch, but whatever the reason, she sucks. So, when Penny meets two different potential partners she’s torn and there’s a lot of page time devoted to this. I don’t connect with pining, or “will they won’t they” build up, or UST in general (unresolved sexual tension). Since there were two different love interests I feel like there was twice the page time taken up with pining and longing and that’s just not my bag. There’s nothing wrong with this romance/these romances (although they were built VERY fast and I like slower burn). These romances could be considered cute and they resolve in way I think most romance readers would enjoy — but I am not a “romance reader.” Unfortunately, despite the strong start, I very nearly DNFed and sort of crawled to the finish with this one. I had gotten so far into what the “main plot” was that I really wanted to see how the book ended to see if it gets resolved.
I liked the world building surrounding the magic and how it worked. It was a raw kind of magic, a brutal kind of magic, and it made for good reading. I was left wondering what the world at large was like, however, and there were a lot of holes that I would have liked an answer to at the end that weren’t given. I’m not sure if these will be answered in future books, but it left me wanting a little bit.
Overall, despite this not being my thing I can say that it would be well-received by others, particularly for those looking for will they won’t they, dark and mysterious love interests, bi sexual main characters, and an oppressive world the main character is fighting against.