Early Review – The Honey Witch by Sydney J. Shields (3/5 stars)
Reading Level:Adult
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Length: 381 pages
Publisher: Redhook
Release Date: May 14, 2024
ASIN: B0CFKZFYC1
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: eGalley from NetGalley
Rating: 3/5 stars
“Twenty-one-year-old Marigold Claude has always preferred the company of the spirits of the meadow to any of the suitors who’ve tried to woo her. So when her grandmother whisks her away to the family cottage on the tiny Isle of Innisfree with an offer to train her as the next Honey Witch, she accepts immediately. But her newfound magic and independence come with a price: No one can fall in love with the Honey Witch.
When Lottie Burke, a notoriously grumpy skeptic who doesn’t believe in magic, shows up on her doorstep, Marigold can’t resist the challenge to prove to her that magic is real. But soon, Marigold begins to care for Lottie in ways she never expected. And when darker magic awakens and threatens to destroy her home, she must fight for much more than her new home—at the risk of losing her magic and her heart.”
Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got an eGalley of this book through NetGalley to review.
Thoughts: This was beautifully written but very slow. Not a lot happens in the first 50% of the book, in fact things don’t really get interested until nearly 60% of the way in.
The story follows Marigold (Mari) a young woman who just doesn’t fit in with her artistically talented family. Mari would rather be running wild with the magial spirits in the forest. When Mari’s grandmother shows up to perform the ritual to help Mari become the next Honey Witch, Mari is thrilled but Mari’s mother is devastated because this means Mari will inherit the Honey Witch curse. As time progresses, Mari lives a rather lonely life as a Honey Witch but this becomes more bearable when she meets an old childhood friend and makes a new acquaintance as well. Then something dark threatens Mari’s magical island of Innisfree and it will take all of Mari’s skills (with help from friends) to turn it away.
This book is beautifully written with a sort of cozy and peaceful quality to it, but so little happens in the beginning that I struggled to stay engaged. The pacing on this is just sooo bad. For the first 70% of the book or so we watch Mari leave her family, train as a witch, and then live alone as a witch. It isn’t until towards the end when she starts to admit her feelings for Lottie and poke at the curse she is under that things start to get interesting.
The ending feels incredibly rushed and, when contrasted to the very deliberate and slow beginning, it just doesn’t match the rest of the book. At the end we are suddenly beset by evil witches and multiple romances. It all just felt very ill-paced.
I wanted to love this and I think Shields has some excellent writing ability but this book really needed to be tightened up in the beginning and expanded in the last 25%.
My Summary (3/5): Overall this was okay. The writing is beautiful and magical but it moves oh so slowly. There is just nothing much that happens until very late in the book. At that point too much happens and is over too quickly feeling very rushed. The pacing for this story is awful. Shields has some nice ideas and beautiful writing, so I will keep an eye on her future books. However, this one had some serious pacing issues.
