Early Review – The Witches of Bone Hill by Ava Morgyn (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Paranormal
Length: 416 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Release Date: September 26, 2023
ASIN : B0BQGJMNVP
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: eGalley from NetGalley for Review
Rating: 3/5 stars
“Cordelia Bone’s meticulously crafted life and career in Dallas are crashing down around her thanks to a philandering husband with criminal debts. When her older, carefree sister, Eustace―a cannabis grower in Boulder―calls to inform her that the great aunt they never met has died and they must travel to a small town in Connecticut to deal with the estate, she sees an opportunity to unload the house and save herself.
But once there, the sisters learn they are getting much more than they bargained for. The Victorian mansion they stand to inherit is bound in a dynasty trust controlled by their late aunt’s aging attorney, who insists they retain and inhabit the house but keeps them in the dark about the peculiar rituals of their ancestors. Not to mention a sexy, tattooed groundskeeper with a shrouded past who refuses to leave the carriage house and a crypt full of dead relatives looming at the property line.
As both women grapple with their current predicament, they come face to face with a haunting family secret, the truth of what happened to their mother, and the enemy that’s been stalking them from the shadows for generations. In a twisting torrent of terror and blood, the sisters must uncover the power within them to heal their fractured relationship, reverse their mysteriously declining health, and claim the lineage they wanted to escape but now must embrace if they are to survive at Bone Hill.”
Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got this as an ebook from NetGalley for review.
Thoughts: This was okay. It’s about two sisters who find out they have inherited a strange family estate along with the odd magical powers. I liked the beginning of this but thought the way the story played out was a bit predictable and boring. I also just never really enjoyed any of the characters that much.
Cordelia is going through a very rough divorce and has been forced to assume a lot of her husband’s debt; despite her booming business in real estate she is running out of money. Then she gets a call from her older sister Eustace (a hippie cannabis grower from Colorado) who tells her that their great-aunt has left them an estate. They never knew their great-aunt but Cordelia sees a possible escape from her money problems and jumps at the opportunity. Upon arrival they find that not only is the house haunted, but their family (which they have been estranged from their whole lives) has some very deep and disturbing secrets. When Cordelia and Eustace start to see changes in their own bodies and powers as well, they know something crazy is happening and Cordelia’s plan to sell off the estate has to go on hold until they solve some deeper mysteries.
There isn’t anything blatantly wrong with this book I just found it a bit scattered. There are almost too many things going on for the plot. Coedelia ends up with a gangster after her who is trying to collect on her husband’s debt; strangely this issue kind of goes away and then comes back at the end. This just didn’t need to be in the story. Then there is the side issue about the groundskeeper whose mom died on the premise of the estate; Cordelia develops a relationship with the groundskeeper so he serves as a romantic interest. Still, the whole back story about his mom felt a bit superfluous and the romance feels half-baked as well. I felt like a lot of these little plot branches really detracted from the overall creepiness of the rest of the story.
I did enjoy the hauntings and the mysteries the sisters uncovered on the estate in the beginning of the book. However, some of the turns the story took towards the end, with competing heirs really took away a lot of the supernatural mystery and pinned a lot of things on one evil character. I found this anti-climatic, predictable and just all in all disappointing. I think this story could have built to a much more intriguing and impactful ending.
The writing is fine but there were some parts of the story where the pacing was a bit slow. I just felt like the book ended up a bit jumbled with too much going on. There’s a lot of potential here but it fell flat for me.
My Summary (3/5): Overall this was okay. The premise here and the beginning of the book was pretty good. I was drawn into the story right away. Then the book lost me; there were too many things happening at once and too many plot points thrown in that were supposedly important but then were quickly brushed aside and forgotten. I never engaged with the characters well and found the ending really predictable and boring. I don’t plan on picking up any books by this author in the future.
