Review

Thank you to PRH and NetGalley for an e-arc of this in exchange for an honest review.

I thought the summary of this book sounded enticing – hence why I requested it. And this book was good. There were some aspects of it that I enjoyed, and I’ll talk a little about those below.

This feels a bit like a dystopian/modern day world, but with magic. Or limited magic. This is essentially a story of persecution of a group of people. Maude was a good character because she balanced between the two lines, and she had her foils who were giving her information — or refusing it.

There is a bit of a mystery in this as well, which is the main focus of the book.

Some of the parts of the book that I enjoyed were:

-the magic. I liked how Wilkinson used magic in interesting ways. I felt that it was a bit of a unique take on magic, and yet, somehow familiar.

-I like how we had a shift of memories as well, as truths are revealed you get more information via Maude.

-the queer aspect in this book was well done. It was simply there, and no explanations for it.

-darker side of magic — I can definitely see why it is comped to ******The Hazel Wood.****** It had a similar feeling to it.

-I liked the writing style. I found it went well with the tone of the story, which I also enjoyed.

The book was slow paced and a bit meandering, and I felt it didn’t really get to the point until towards the end, and by then I was slowly losing interest. While I thought Maude was a good character, I didn’t find her terribly compelling, at least not until towards the end.

This book is very focused on stories, and the truth behind stories. It was a solid read!

I enjoyed the ending immensely — and thought it worked with the overall theme of the book.