I was probably in a snarky mood because the setup did not captivate me at first—A witch generationally cursed never to find true love sets out to break the spell cast on her family and must team up with the last person who wants to help her – the witch who set the curse in the first place. But, snarkiness aside, I am always in the mood for witches and curses, plus we are going to Scotland in this one, and what the hell. Also, many reviews reassured me that this was not just a poofy romance with magic tossed in on the side.
So we do have a poofy romance with magic—which (despite my blackened heart) I actually found quite charming. The love story is so nicely developed throughout—but we also have some lovely imagery, well-drawn characters, and enough trickery to make it interesting.
The main character is a modern witch in a family cursed by another witchy family. Basically, the curse means you can either pine away searching for love—which you’ll never find—until you die, or you can enchant some poor sap into thinking he’s in love with you and then for the rest of your days deal with the guilt of doing that and the knowledge that nothing is real. There’s a ticking clock on this, too, and our main character is up against the deadline.
The witch who cast the spell is contained inside a magical prison, so our main character decides to bust him out and somehow convince him to reverse the spell and stop all this nonsense. I thought this was highly pragmatic of her. How pig-headed can he be, after all?
Now I am a sucker for an arrogant witch, so I’m on board from the here. Obstacles abound and the course of true love and all that. Paige Crutcher does a lovely job of letting the story develop as things get dicey, dicier, and diciest.
The pace is a bit slow the beginning —but honestly, I wasn’t bored—just in a hurry to see where we were going. Stick with it because you’ll find some wonderful scenes and surprises along the way. Read the last chapter carefully for a last-minute jolt!
I have to mention the wonderfully dreamy/magical/wibblywobbly feeling throughout the book. Well done! It’s a witchy tale—perfect for a dark autumn night. I highly recommend it to curse fanciers, magic lovers, and enchantment enthusiasts.
A note here on the usefulness of reviews—Just a few words about a book at Amazon or Goodreads or B&N or wherever can guide readers to that book and make the author a couple of bucks—and, most valuable of all, your review will provide that author with a warm and fuzzy feeling for days to come.
I highly suggest that you drop a review on the books you enjoy so other readers can find them. As a reader, I use reviews to make sense of the hundreds of thousands of books to choose from. I do not pay much attention to bad reviews—seriously, don’t write those. Write a balanced review—tell us what you liked and what you didn’t —and let readers take it from there. Not all books are for all people, but all books are for some people, so help direct readers to the books they will love.
As I learned from Bambi: If you can’t say something nice—don’t say nothing at all.
This book will be released in February, but you can preorder it HERE. For more information, check out the author’s Amazon page. The book is also available on NetGalley if you review there.
A witch generationally cursed to never find true love sets out to break the spell cast on her family and must team up with the last person who wants to help her – the witch who set the curse in the first place.
Doreen MacKinnon is doomed to die of a broken heart – if she can’t break the centuries-old curse placed on her family.
Three hundred years ago, Ambrose MacDonald, a powerful male witch, fell in love with a MacKinnon. And when the MacKinnon witches forbade him from seeing his love by secretly hiding her away, he retaliated by cursing the family and its future generations to never find love. But it wasn’t without a cost. Now, Ambrose is imprisoned by those same witches, trapped in a tempest and doomed to outlive everyone he has ever loved.
But Doreen isn’t like the other MacKinnon witches. As the 13th generation of the MacKinnon line, Doreen is one of the most powerful witches in centuries… and one of the loneliest. So when she discovers where Ambrose has been trapped, she releases him to help her break the curse, once and for all. Ambrose agrees to help, but with his own motive: vengeance. He plans to use her as bait to enact his revenge on her family.
Together, they enter a series of trials, which take them to a castle in Scotland, off a cliff, and into a world beyond their wildest dreams. As they work together, sparks start to fly, but soon Doreen must choose how far she is willing to go to break the curse, and what she’s willing to sacrifice.
Paige Crutcher’s A Circle of Uncommon Witches is a story of adventure, romance, and destiny, that asks: is true love worth the cost?
