By: Louisa Morgan
Synopsis
From the book dust jacket:
A sweeping historical saga that traces five generations of fiercely powerful witches whose magical inheritance is both a dangerous threat and an extraordinary gift. Brittany, 1821. When Grand-mere Ursule gives her life to save her family, the magic seems to die with her. Even so, the Orchieres fight to keep the old ways alive, practicing half-remembered spells and arcane rites in hopes of a revival. And when their youngest daughter comes of age, magic flows anew. The lineage continues, through new generations struggle not only to master their power, but also to keep it hidden. But when World War II looms on the horizon, magic is needed more urgently than ever – not for simple potions or visions, but to change the entire course of history.
My Thoughts
This book left me with mixed feelings. It was interesting enough to finish, but it was also just kind of meh. It wasn’t terrible, but it had the potential to be so much more. It left me with a lot of questions. Why was Nanette so much younger than her sisters and what happened to their parents? Why did Nanette’s magic fade? What was the basis for Ursule’s and Sebastien’s relationship? Why did none of the men ever notice the women sneaking off during the night to perform their rituals? There were other problems with the story as well. The magic was inconsistent – sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. Why was Veronica the only one who mentioned seeing faces in the stone and the only one the stone “called” to?
The characters felt somewhat two-dimensional to me. The interesting secondary characters were never fleshed out, and left me wanting to know a lot more about them. Then, just when I was getting to know a main character, the story would jump to the next main character leaving the individual stories feeling rushed and unfulfilled. The transitions between the stories were abrupt and not smoothly done at all. I also felt the stories were a bit repetitive. The daughter is in the dark until she hits puberty at which point she knows everything instinctually, she summons a man to impregnate her, gives birth to a daughter, and repeat.
The story started off as a strong matriarchy, but that faded quickly as the women continuously submitted to the men. The gender stereotypes were prevalent with most of the men being made out to be brutish and dumb, and the couple of decent men were, of course, “beautiful” to look at (insert eye-roll here). The women seemed to only want to get pregnant with one character even saying “I’m breeding.” It also got tiring that they were supposed to be strong and powerful in “the craft,” but never seemed to use their magic for much more than summoning a man to impregnate them to help them propagate the family line. Veronica was the exception to this, which made her story a little more interesting. She also attempted to use magic to get a man, though.
Bottom line for me is this story was interesting enough to finish, but it could have been so much better had the characters, main and secondary, been fleshed-out and allowed to more fully develop. If this had taken two or three volumes to accomplish, that would have been fine as this would have made for an interesting trilogy.
Let’s talk. What are your thoughts on this one?