Review: The Witch's Kind

The Witch's Kind by Louisa Morgan
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

3.5 Stars

I want to like this book so much more than my intellectual reaction to it. It wasn't the book I thought it was going into it, though I grew to love the two protagonists, Aunt Charlotte and her niece Barrie Anne Blythe. I also enjoyed Willow and Emma. My main question is... Is this really a book about witches? I'm not 100% sold on the idea.

I found the historical aspect of the story (post- WWII) to be of interest (how people recover from war), and I liked the slow revelation of witchery and the lesbian aspects (really, how many people are in total denial about their spinster aunts, I wonder?) but some of the secondary characters, in particular, Will, are just so two-dimensional and obvious that I occasionally felt annoyed. (You could see Will for who he was from the very beginning! No depth!)

I've seen some reviewers compare this novel to Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman, and that's just a disservice to Morgan's writing here. While she explores relationships, magic, and love, the strongest aspect was the alien aspect for me, rather than any conventional witchcraft theme. It's not the X-Files exactly, but I'm not sure that readers picking up this book are going to get what they anticipated. Not that that's always a bad thing... Yet the story flows and I found the interrelationship between Barrie Anne, Charlotte, Willow the Dog and Emma to be a moving one.

A pleasant read if you don't go into it expecting some intergenerational family witchcraft story by Alice Hoffman!

I received a Digital Review Copy from Redhook Press in exchange for an honest review.

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