Waking the Witch: a darkly spellbinding tale of female empowerment

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Throughout this book, I felt the pain, confusion, fear and anger that Ivy felt as she learns more about herself and her origins. There are vivid descriptions of the landscape and the characters which made everything very real. That last one really takes the cake. Yeah, something is happening, it's me losing my will to live. Why hasn't an editor gone through this and tightened it up? It makes for poor storytelling, when we're getting nothing other than the character feeling "something"- I NEED MORE! I know this is an arc, but I'm doubtful how many more revisions it will have before publishing. More show, less tell, please.

I would like to thank Readers First and Hot Key books for providing a copy of this book in exchange for a review Rachel Burge is the author of The Twisted Tree, The Crooked Mask and Waking the Witch, published by Hot Key Books/Bonnier. Teenager Ivy lives in the south-west of England, and has spent most of her life searching for her birth mother. Abandoned as a baby, and passed from one foster home to another, all she has is an unfinished note from her mother telling Ivy "I can no longer protect you". Eventually, a surprise lead points her to a woman living on a island off the coast of Wales, who might be her mother. Following a strange experience at work, Ivy finds herself on the road to Wales, courtesy of friend-not-friend Tom.

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In Ness’s world, you can become your Nightmare, a possibility for her future that Ness has been terrified of ever since her sister became one. To avoid a similar fate, Ness joins the cult-ish Friends of the Restful Soul…but membership doesn’t come without its price. International bestselling author Alexandra Christo brings an imaginative and unique twist on magic to life in her novel Into the Crooked Place.

Setting also plays a big part. I like to choose settings that are slightly apart from the 'real' world, where you have the sense that something unexplained could happen. I spend a lot of time trying to create a strong sense of place and atmosphere, so that the reader feels they're in the story with the characters. This hopefully makes the story feel more believable.

Zafira is the Hunter, facing the cursed Arz forest to help her people. Nasir is the Prince of Death, son of the sultan, and assassin of anyone who defies his father. Both conceal truths that could be their undoing, though both consent to their respective roles. With war on the horizon, Zafira goes on a quest to stop the Arz, and Nasir is sent to kill the Hunter. However, neither is prepared for what the truth behind their missions will reveal. Grab a copy of this thrilling post-apocalyptic YA fantasy book here. City of Nightmares (City of Nightmares #1) by Rebecca Schaeffer

The ending does leave it open slightly, and I do hope that we’ll see a sequel, but if not the ending has allowed me ponder on how our characters do in the future.I really enjoyed this book, and will happily make Rachel Burge an auto-buy author in the future. Highly recommend to anyone who loves a witchy book! It's very difficult for me to give this a star rating for a couple of reasons. The first half of the book felt like a 5 star read for me. When we switched genre at the halfway point I felt less enamoured with it and I felt further disappointed upon realising that this seems to be set up for a sequel, given the length of the book I would have much preferred a standalone. Overall all though I think 4 stars captures my feelings.