Emilia Hart

Since my view is in the minority here, it seems important to add it: I wanted to like this book, but the writing was predictable, with superficial character development. It read like a bodice-ripper dressed up with a bit of historical accuracy. None of the characters were compelling enough to stick it out for, so I stopped listening about a third of the way through. (I went back a few days later to try again and it still felt the same.) EDIT: The lack of positive male characters, issues of pregnancy/abortion, etc., named in other reviews, weren't a problem for me, except that the men (like the women) and their interactions were one-dimensional.… (altro)

To say I was disappointed to listen to this book is putting it mildly. It won best historical fiction in the 2023 GoodReads Best Books for 2023, and as historical fiction is my favourite genre, I thought I should read it. Well this isn't historical fiction. Far from it. There are zero historical facts in this book, just witches, women with bad luck and troubles, women who can't seem to make their own minds, nothing butmagical realism, and some very hateful men. The book should be rated as feminist fiction, and no where did I see that in any of the reviews that I did read. I was stretched to the limit with horrible, evil men, and thought to myself--"how misleading". Not every man is a chauvinistic, mean bully. I know lots of really loving, kind men, including my father and my husband. I couldn't take it after I was about halfway through the book and sent it back to the library where I borrowed it from.… (altro)

“Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us.”

“The connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming force on the planet.”

It was not as good as I expected...too many tropes. Women, abused and trapped in circumstances of men's making- find hidden power through a magical connection to nature.
Altha, 1619 is on trial for witchcraft. Violet, abandoned by her family, finds solace and power in discovering her family legacy. Kate, abused and pregnant learns that she is connected, over centuries, to a powerful matriarchy that can use nature to survive, and exact revenge against abusive men.

"This wildness inside gives us our name. It was men who marked us so, in the time when language was but a shoot curling from the earth. Weyward, they called us, when we would not submit, would not bend to their will. But we learned to wear the name with pride.”


… (altro)