Mini Review ~ Backlist eARC ~ Witch Haven

 

I am trying really hard to make a point to get to some of my older eARCs that I still have hanging out on Netgalley but not read. 

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Rating: 4 stars

The Last Magician meets The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy in this atmospheric historical fantasy following a young woman who discovers she has magical powers and is thrust into a battle between witches and wizards.

In 1911 New York City, seventeen-year-old Frances Hallowell spends her days as a seamstress, mourning the mysterious death of her brother months prior. Everything changes when she’s attacked and a man ends up dead at her feet—her scissors in his neck, and she can’t explain how they got there.

Before she can be condemned as a murderess, two cape-wearing nurses arrive to inform her she is deathly ill and ordered to report to Haxahaven Sanitarium. But Frances finds Haxahaven isn’t a sanitarium at all: it’s a school for witches. Within Haxahaven’s glittering walls, Frances finds the sisterhood she craves, but the headmistress warns Frances that magic is dangerous. Frances has no interest in the small, safe magic of her school, and is instead enchanted by Finn, a boy with magic himself who appears in her dreams and tells her he can teach her all she’s been craving to learn, lessons that may bring her closer to discovering what truly happened to her brother.

Frances’s newfound power attracts the attention of the leader of an ancient order who yearns for magical control of Manhattan. And who will stop at nothing to have Frances by his side. Frances must ultimately choose what matters more, justice for her murdered brother and her growing feelings for Finn, or the safety of her city and fellow witches. What price would she pay for power, and what if the truth is more terrible than she ever imagined?

I was really excited for this one when I first requested it and then I got to thinking about how it was YA and I probably wouldn't like it so I held off on it and then it dropped off my radar until I got an email about the second book and then I was like oh yeah I have book one and it's the perfect time of year to bust it out so I did. :) 

I enjoyed this a bit more than I thought I would. Frances is an interesting character and I like the historical aspects of it as well. 

Frances accidently kills a man as is afraid she is going to be hauled to jail but instead some ladies calling themselves the Haxahaven Sanitarium that deal with Tuberculosis, but it's actually a place that helps Witches with their powers and Frances happens to be one. The thing is they want her to learn how to magic things for being a proper woman and Frances finds out about other magic that could maybe allow her to talk to her dead brother but this doesn't go as planned.

Frances ends up opening a whole new can of worms that has to do with the differences in Haxahaven and the male counter part Sons of (well I can't remember), anyway it causes a rift and there is also one of the boys who helps that along a bit. 

I thought it was pretty decent so I am curious enough to try the next book to see what happens after all that happened at the end!