Tag Archives: Witches

Review: Twin Crowns by Catherine Doyle and Katherine Webber

Twin Crowns by Catherine Doyle and Katherine Webber

Twin Crowns (Twin Crowns #1)
Catherine Doyle and Katherine Webber
Balzer + Bray
Published May 17, 2022

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About Twin Crowns

Wren Greenrock has always known that one day she would steal her sister’s place in the palace. Trained from birth to return to the place of her parents’ murder and usurp the only survivor, she will do anything to rise to power and protect the community of witches she loves. Or she would, if only a certain palace guard wasn’t quite so distractingly attractive, and if her reckless magic didn’t have a habit of causing trouble…

Princess Rose Valhart knows that with power comes responsibility. Marriage into a brutal kingdom awaits, and she will not let a small matter like waking up in the middle of the desert in the company of an extremely impertinent (and handsome) kidnapper get in the way of her royal duty. But life outside the palace walls is wilder and more beautiful than she ever imagined, and the witches she has long feared might turn out to be the family she never knew she was missing.

Two sisters separated at birth and raised into entirely different worlds are about to get to know each other’s lives a whole lot better. But as coronation day looms closer and they each strive to claim their birthright, the sinister Kingsbreath, Willem Rathborne, becomes increasingly determined that neither will succeed. Who will ultimately rise to power and wear the crown?

My Review

Catherine Doyle’s Storm Keeper series is one of my favorite middle grade series ever, so when I saw that she was co-authoring this new YA series, I knew I had to check it out. Bonus: it’s about sisters! My favorite kind of story.

To start, I really liked the premise, and both Wren and Rose as characters. I felt like they were both pretty believable in the roles they’d grown up in. They were also different yet similar enough that I had no problem believing they were sisters.

I liked the pace of the story, too. At first it looks like Wren’s challenge will be keeping up the charade that she’s Princess Rose for thirty whole days. Then, when she realizes the kingsbreath’s true plan, the pressure reverses, so that it feels like she’s right up against a deadline with so much to do to stop her enemy and take the throne.

I only stumbled over a couple of things. One is the balance of romance to the quest for the crown. I think I expected the romance to be more of a subplot and to have the girls and their adventure be more centerstage. There were moments when I felt like the romance kind of overshadowed what was happening in a way that pulled me away from the rest of the story.

The politics also tripped me up a little bit. The story really builds up the strong prejudice against witches. They’re executed if found. People pray to the Protector if they think they’ve seen one. People worry they’ve been cursed if they have a string of bad circumstances. Those bad feelings seemed to unravel really easily, though. I found that hard to believe after the initial setup.

Honestly, all it meant for me was that I turned up my suspension of disbelief, because I really enjoyed the sisterhood and the magic and adventure elements that made up the rest of the story. I’m definitely going to continue on with this series.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Major characters are white. Shen is from a desert kingdom. Celeste has brown skin. She and a couple other minor characters are queer.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used very infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. Brief reference to sexual arousal. In one scene, a boy takes off his shirt and a girl loosens her dress as they make out.

Spiritual Content
Wren and other characters have the ability to perform magic and are called witches. Rose’s people worship the Great Protector, a historical figure they’re taught saved them from the witches. In her kingdom, witches are executed.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. A boy battles a giant beetle. A girl tries to kill another by stealing her breath and using wind to shove her off a cliffside. A girl relives memories from a battle long ago and watches as witches are slain on the battlefield. References to the torture of witches. A man kills a woman by cutting her throat. A battle destroys a building and kills several people present. A leopard attacks a girl, severely wounding her.

Drug Content
Some characters drink alcohol until they’re drunk.

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Author Q&A with Maybe There Are Witches Author Jude Atwood

I recently learned about a middle grade book called MAYBE THERE ARE WITCHES. In the book, a girl learns an ancestor of hers was hanged for being a witch. She finds her great-great-great-grandmother’s diary in the basement. Bad things start happening around her, things predicted in the diary. I’m generally a fan of intergenerational stories, so I’m super intrigued by this setup. When I learned author Jude Atwood was available to answer some questions about the book, I couldn’t resist hosting a Q&A. Here’s what I learned.

I find that a story was often inspired by a question. Was there a question that inspired you to write MAYBE THERE ARE WITCHES?

I think a lot of writing decisions are inspired by questions. For me, these questions often take the form of “What if?” I keep a lot of lists, and the seed that would become MAYBE THERE ARE WITCHES was in a list, years ago, of ideas for horror movie scenes. It was something like, “What if a woman found a very old diary in her house, and as she read it, she realized it was written to her?” Later, as I started thinking about writing a novel, I thought, “What if the woman was a girl? What if the book was written by an ancestor of hers?”

It looks like the story is set in rural Illinois. What is it about that setting that makes it perfect for your book?

I grew up on a farm in rural Illinois. Since then, I’ve lived in small cities like Peoria, Illinois, and bigger cities, like Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles. Now I live in Orange County, where multiple cities form a sort of suburban megalopolis. There are plenty of things to love about all of these places, but I’m fascinated by their differences, and the misconceptions we often have about other regions. For example, where I grew up, I never skipped school, because even if I’d wanted to, there was no place to go—anywhere I went, whoever I saw would have said, “Jude, why aren’t you in school?” On the other hand, many of the college students I work with in Orange County have wild stories about skipping high school, even though some have never left the state.

I wanted to write about a girl who moves from Orange County to rural Illinois, so she can undergo a bit of a culture shock, but can also go through the very human experience of trying to find a sense of community in a new place, trying to figure out who “gets” you, and who you can trust and open up to.

For a writer, there are also practical reasons to choose a setting with a small population, especially for a scary story or a mystery. It’s easier to keep track of a limited group of characters, and there’s more of a sense that you can’t get away.

Who is your favorite character? Are there things about your favorite character which couldn’t be included in MAYBE THERE ARE WITCHES?

My official position is that I love all of my characters equally. And the easy answer is that I love whoever I’m writing at the time. But if I had to pick one, I’ll say that I really loved trying to work out the character of Chris Beck, who begins the story as a sort of backwoods loner who marches to the beat of his own drum.

The book was pared down quite a bit during the editing process, because my editor and I wanted to focus on the supernatural mystery elements of the story. Chris lost a few good lines, but not as many as the adult characters did.

Is there a scene or moment in your novel that really sticks with you? Can you tell us a little bit about it?

There’s a scene in the first half of the novel where two of the main characters, Clara and Gary, visit Chris’ house for the first time. He takes them to the basement to show them a dead coyote in his family’s chest freezer. When I was writing it, I thought of it as a funny, if slightly odd, scene, but I’ve since had a conversation with a blogger who thought the idea seemed too over-the-top/gory for a middle-grade book. That surprised me, because it came straight out of my childhood. We often had some kind of wild animal in our freezer, either for a bounty or for food.

My life’s a little different today. Now my freezer just has a bag of ice, a frozen pizza, and some blueberries and bananas for smoothies.

What was your favorite part of the process of creating MAYBE THERE ARE WITCHES? What was the most fun?

I’m a fairly slow writer, probably because I’m enamored with all of the aspects of writing a novel that don’t involve actually writing. I love to brainstorm ideas, and jokes, and scenarios—stuff that I may or may not use. As I mentioned earlier: I keep a lot of lists. I also really like doing research. The main characters in this book compete on their middle school scholastic bowl team, and as I researched, I learned that scholastic bowl has changed a bit since I competed years ago; the questions now have a very specific structure. So I got a kick out of trying to create a whole packet of potential scholastic bowl questions that might sound realistic, even though only a few ended up in the book.

What do you most hope that readers take away from your book?

It’s a story with a witch and a villain—although they may not be the same person. But it’s also a story about the stages of friendship, and the ways that we try to understand the people we meet as we get to know them better. I hope the book inspires a few readers to think about how there’s more to everyone than what we think we know.

What is one question about your novel you are often asked by readers?

The question I get asked most often is, “Are there witches?” But that’s probably because many of my early readers have corny senses of humor.

About Maybe There Are Witches

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“I can’t think of a better fate for young readers.” -Steven T. Seagle, co-creator of Ben 10Big Hero 6, and Camp Midnight

After moving to the tiny village of Biskopskulla, middle school student Clara Hutchins discovers that her family has a history in the region: one hundred forty years ago, one of her ancestors was hanged as a witch from the white oak tree on the edge of town. When Clara finds a mildewed diary in the basement, she’ s even able to read the rambling thoughts of her long-dead relative.

But when the book’ s predictions about Clara’ s own life start coming true, she wonders if those 19th-century villagers had a point: maybe her great-great-great grandmother really did have unearthly abilities. Now, a break-in at the tomb of the town’ s founder means a great evil has returned to Biskopskulla. Clara and her newest friends— two of the weirdest boys in school— must join forces to decipher the messages of a murdered witch and stop an unnatural catastrophe. But as they quest through historic cemeteries, backcountry libraries, and high-octane scholastic bowl tournaments, something sinister is lurking, watching, and waiting…

About Jude Atwood

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Raised on a farm in rural Illinois near the Quad Cities, Jude Atwood treasured the long drives into town for groceries and library books. The small towns in the region were brimming with opportunities for kids to be creative. The library hosted poster contests; the newspaper had a kids’ cooking feature. Once, Jude took youth summer classes in Parody, Movie Appreciation, and Latex Mask-making at the local community college. He wrote songs about garbage bags, learned about Alfred Hitchcock, and made a shrunken head.

He got his first job at fifteen: detasseling, pulling the reproductive parts off of corn plants for a seed corn company making hybrid varieties of corn. At Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, Jude competed in intercollegiate forensics, where he learned the value of a well-timed joke and the fact that your audience always has something to teach you. He moved to Orange County, California, where it hasn’t snowed in over seventy years, and earned his M.F.A. in Film from Chapman University. In Hollywood, he worked very briefly as an assistant in the office of a man who is now famous for throwing things at assistants.

After that, Jude became a full-time community college professor, a vocation that continues to this day. He spent several years coaching the college speech, debate, & theater team, and he now devotes much of his energy to teaching mass communication and media literacy classes. He’s made many friends and (he hopes) very few enemies. In his career as an educator, Jude received a commendation from the city of Santa Ana for his work with students, and was honored with the Legacy Award from the American Readers Theater Association for contributions to the art of readers theater. His writing has appeared in Unfortunately, Literary Magazine and Plainsongs, and his first novel, Maybe There Are Witches, won the 2021 Kraken Book Prize for Middle Grade Fiction.

Jude lives in California with his boyfriend and his dog.

Review: Maybe There Are Witches by Jude Atwood

Maybe There Are Witches
Jude Atwood
Fitzroy Books
Published June 13, 2023

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Maybe There Are Witches

“I can’t think of a better fate for young readers.” -Steven T. Seagle, co-creator of Ben 10Big Hero 6, and Camp Midnight.

After moving to the tiny village of Biskopskulla, middle school student Clara Hutchins discovers that her family has a history in the region: one hundred forty years ago, one of her ancestors was hanged as a witch from the white oak tree on the edge of town. When Clara finds a mildewed diary in the basement, she’s even able to read the rambling thoughts of her long-dead relative.

But when the book’s predictions about Clara’s own life start coming true, she wonders if those 19th-century villagers had a point: maybe her great-great-great grandmother really did have unearthly abilities. Now, a break-in at the tomb of the town’s founder means a great evil has returned to Biskopskulla. Clara and her newest friends— two of the weirdest boys in school— must join forces to decipher the messages of a murdered witch and stop an unnatural catastrophe. But as they quest through historic cemeteries, backcountry libraries, and high-octane scholastic bowl tournaments, something sinister is lurking, watching, and waiting…

My Review

One of the things I liked about this book is the way that Clara’s quest to discover what happened to her ancestor leads her to a new group of friends. At first, on her own in a new town, she feels pretty isolated. The discovery of her great-great-great grandmother’s diary could have been something she kept to herself and which further isolated her from others. Instead, it becomes a vehicle through which she builds a new community around herself. She makes friends, like Gary and Chris, and even comes to connect with a mentor of sorts.

In terms of pacing, the story begins slowly, but the tension and speed at which things unfold gradually builds until, by the end, it’s a pretty wild ride!

There was really only one thing that I have mixed feelings about, and I don’t think I can talk about it without spoiling a couple of things, so I’m going to leave that all the way at the end, after the content summary.

On the whole, though, I think readers who enjoyed THE DARKDEEP by Ally Condie and Brendan Reichs will enjoy the eerie supernatural storytelling of this book.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 10 to 14.

Representation
Clara is white. One of her friends is Vietnamese American.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Clara finds a diary that appears to predict the future and responds to her actions and questions. She and her friends encounter other artifacts that have supernatural abilities. Clara and her friends try to complete an elaborate ritual they believe will banish evil from their town.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Someone tells Clara macabre stories of the town’s history, including the story of a cult leader who was murdered by gun violence and a woman hanged to death for being a witch. References to a teenager killed in a car accident. More than once, people enter Clara’s house without permission. (One person mistakes it for a bed and breakfast establishment, and another appears intent on harming her and her friends.) Someone chases Clara and her friends and locks them inside a garage. A person uses a cattle prod to incapacitate someone else. Someone stabs another person through the heart.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of MAYBE THERE ARE WITCHES in exchange for my honest review.

SPOILER

The only thing I had mixed feelings about is that the woman who was murdered by the townspeople does turn out to be truly evil. There isn’t really any examination about whether, since she was evil, her execution was justified. One character comments that, basically, there are good witches and witches who cause harm, the same way that there are in other groups of people. So it is obliquely addressed, but it did leave me feeling a little weird because maybe the book implied that not all of the witch trials/murders were a bad thing (in a made-up world in which magic and witchcraft really do exist).

It’s possible that I’m reading way too much into the story and feeling weird for no reason. I liked a lot of other elements of the book, so I’m glad I had a chance to read it.

Review: Cursed Crowns by Catherine Doyle and Katherine Webber

Cursed Crowns (Twin Crowns #2)
Catherine Doyle and Katherine Webber
Balzer + Bray
Published May 9, 2023

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About Cursed Crowns

Bestselling authors and real-life sisters-in-law Catherine Doyle and Katherine Webber join forces on a compelling YA fantasy bursting with high-stakes adventure, romance and humour. Two queens, one throne. What can possibly go wrong . . .?

Twin queens Wren and Rose have claimed their crowns . . . but not everyone is happy about witches sitting on Eana’s throne.

Cool-headed Rose sets off on a Royal Tour to win over the doubters, but soon finds herself drawn to the Sunless Kingdom. Here secrets are revealed about those closest to her, and Rose finds her loyalties divided.

Meanwhile rebellious Wren steals away to the icy north to rescue their beloved grandmother, Banba. But when she accepts King Alarik’s deadly magical bargain in exchange for Banba’s freedom, the spell has unexpected – and far-reaching – consequences . . .

As an ancient curse begins to arise from the darkness, the sisters must come together and unite the crown. Their lives – and the future of Eana – depend on it.

Break the ice to free the curse,
Kill one twin to save another . . .

My Review

I started this series because Catherine Doyle wrote one of my favorite middle grade series. In addition, it’s about two sisters– one of my favorite kinds of stories.

I like the pacing of CURSED CROWNS. Things happen quickly, and that kept me feeling like I wanted to keep reading to see what happened next, even long past time for me to go to bed. I also like the two sisters and their different personalities. Rose is so proper, but she uses that knowledge to wield respect and power, which is really cool. Wren has no patience for the long game of diplomacy. She acts impulsively, guided by her gut and her heart. I love that about her.

Though it’s a longer book– 499 pages– the writing is easy to read, and the chapters are pretty short. I read it pretty fast, and had a lot of fun reading it. The story doesn’t take itself overly seriously, either. Sometimes odd, even ridiculous things happen that kind of give a break from the stakes and intensity of the situation the queens find themselves in.

The first book, TWIN CROWNS introduces a romance for each sister. I felt like there was more emphasis on the romance in that book than I expected there to be. It left me wondering if the balance between the romance and the other plot elements was off.

I think CURSED CROWNS has a great balance between these two components, and it even introduces some complications to the romance that I’m really interested in following into the next book in the series.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Main characters are white. Shen and some other minor characters are described as having dark eyes and golden-brown skin and coming from a desert kingdom.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used very infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. Some vague references to wanting more than kissing.

Spiritual Content
Some characters are witches and have the ability to perform magic. One character learns of a forbidden magic that is performed using blood, but it comes at a high cost.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Battle scenes. A faction of people with deep anti-witch sentiment threaten Rose and her party. A group of animals try to attack Wren.

Drug Content
Characters drink alcohol. One character repeatedly pines for whiskey.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of CURSED CROWN in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Witchlings by Claribel Ortega

Witchlings (Witchlings #1)
Claribel Ortega
Scholastic Press
Published April 5, 2022

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About Witchlings

A magical adventure for fans of AMARI AND THE NIGHT BROTHERS and NEVERMOOR, about three witchlings who must work together to do the impossible if they have any hope of earning their full powers.

Every year, in the magical town of Ravenskill, Witchlings who participate in the Black Moon Ceremony are placed into covens and come into their powers as full-fledged witches.

And twelve-year-old Seven Salazar can’t wait to be placed in the most powerful coven with her best friend! But on the night of the ceremony, in front of the entire town, Seven isn’t placed in one of the five covens. She’s a Spare!

Spare covens have fewer witches, are less powerful, and are looked down on by everyone. Even worse, when Seven and the other two Spares perform the magic circle to seal their coven and cement themselves as sisters, it doesn’t work! They’re stuck as Witchlings—and will never be able to perform powerful magic.

Seven invokes her only option: the impossible task. The three Spares will be assigned an impossible task: If they work together and succeed at it, their coven will be sealed and they’ll gain their full powers. If they fail… Well, the last coven to make the attempt ended up being turned into toads. Forever.

But maybe friendship can be the most powerful magic of all…

With action-packed adventure, a coven of quirky witchlings, Claribel A. Ortega’s signature humor and girl-power vibes, this middle grade Latine witch story is truly a modern classic.

My Review

It’s funny to me that this book is compared to AMARI AND THE NIGHT BROTHERS– the comparison makes perfect sense, it’s just that I read them both at the same time. I definitely see the connection, though they aren’t the same story at all.

WITCHLINGS has been on my reading list for a while. In fact, I have a hard copy of GHOST SQUAD that I still haven’t read yet. I’ve heard so many great things about Claribel Ortega’s books that I have really wanted to catch up. When I saw that Rockstar Book Tours had open spots on their tour for THE GOLDEN FROG GAMES (Witchlings #2), I jumped at the chance to participate… which meant I needed to read this book first!

I loved so many things about this book. It’s got a perfect ramp-up of stakes. It’s got a really fun and intriguing story world. I loved the way that familiar words were just a bit different. For instance, instead of Bingo, characters say, Flingo. There are a lot of things about toads, including a really imaginative and silly toad race. In the midst of all that, Seven and her friends are on a quest to subdue a dangerous monster called a Nightbeast. I felt like the story added new information and increased tension at exactly the right places.

I’m super excited to read the second book in the series. I think fans of AMARI AND THE NIGHT BROTHERS by B. B. Alston and SHADOW MAGIC by Joshua Khan will like this series.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Representation
Seven is Latine.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Most characters are witches, with magical power. There are magical beasts as well.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Some brief battle scenes.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of WITCHLINGS in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker, Wendy Xu, and Joamette Gil

Mooncakes
Suzanne Walker, Wendy Xu, and Joamette Gil
Oni Press
Published October 22, 2019

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Mooncakes

A story of love and demons, family and witchcraft.

Nova Huang knows more about magic than your average teen witch. She works at her grandmothers’ bookshop, where she helps them loan out spell books and investigate any supernatural occurrences in their New England town.

One fateful night, she follows reports of a white wolf into the woods, and she comes across the unexpected: her childhood crush, Tam Lang, battling a horse demon in the woods. As a werewolf, Tam has been wandering from place to place for years, unable to call any town home.

Pursued by dark forces eager to claim the magic of wolves and out of options, Tam turns to Nova for help. Their latent feelings are rekindled against the backdrop of witchcraft, untested magic, occult rituals, and family ties both new and old in this enchanting tale of self-discovery.

My Review

I reviewed TIDESONG by Wendy Xu and noticed that a lot of other reviewers commented on how much they’d loved MOONCAKES, so I decided to check it out. I feel like I’m always saying I’m not really a big reader of graphic novels, and I’m not, but I’ve read several this year that I’ve really enjoyed. MOONCAKES is definitely one of those!

At the start of the story, we meet Nova, who helps her grandmothers in their magical bookshop. When Nova’s friend Tam returns to town in trouble, Nova immediately decides to help them. As the two reconnect, some romance blossoms. Some secrets get spilled. Plot twists happen. I found I couldn’t stop reading.

Between the beautiful illustrations and the charming dialogue, I got completely sucked into this story. I loved Nova’s grandmothers. They’re so practical and chill about everything. And I loved watching Nova and Tam’s relationship develop. It’s absolutely sweet.

MOONCAKES is definitely written for an older audience than TIDESONG, but I loved it all the same. I think readers who love witchy stories about found family will want to check this one out (if you haven’t already!).

Content Notes for Mooncakes

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
Tam is nonbinary. Nova is maybe pansexual? Two women, Nova’s grandmothers, are in a relationship.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between a girl and a nonbinary person.

Spiritual Content
Nova and her grandmothers are witches. Tam is a werewolf. They fight other spiritual creatures.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Cartoonish battle violence.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog.