Release Date: 9th March 2021
★★★★
Ok I'm going to list a bunch of things about this book here because I’ve been reading on a lot of ao3 and that’s how I'm finding my stories.
- High fantasy
- Sapphic witches
- Kinda enemies to lovers
- Definitely idiots to lovers
- A little smidge of there’s only one bed trope
- It is around 350 pages (around 110,000 words because ao3) but I flew by it, finished it in a single sitting Tasmin the most powerful witch of her generation can’t love, has been cursed to not feel for years now. She may heal someone, help someone but she only takes payment in love. There’s a magical plague sweeping through the queendom and that brings Wren to the witch’s door. Wren is a source but more importantly her father is struck by the plague, the same father she has devoted her entire life to. Wren bargains her store of love to save her father and the two strike a bargain to end the plague.
Never learn to love someone untouchable.
This was a really fun adorable fast read. Ok Tasmin cannot love, can't even feel the good feelings really. So she’s a super interesting character with her morality and mostly indifference. On the other hand wren is on the opposite, full of feeling and life and even overwhelming at times. And that made her a more compelling character to me. Especially when she wants her father to acknowledge what she’s doing. To be appreciated and valued for everything she had done for her father. I think it worked out so much better than a selfless daughter angle. Her this “selfish” step also gave her character more depth. She had solid motivations to go and finally be magical, to harness and learn the magic that she’s been living with her entire life.
I actually really like the situation Wren was in with her father. There was this concept that he was ill (even before the plague) because he was so blanketed with guilt of what happened in the past. But also because Wren was so insanely selflessly doing everything for him and he just left on her to take care of him. And eventually he forgot he was the father in that relationship.
The magic was actually really interesting. Wren as a source can actually see the magic, colorful swirls or soot like black magic. And obviously Tasmin somehow extracting love from her patrons. And even the magical witch world Within was really beautiful.
It was not a heavy book or something with very deep thematic meaning but it was a really enjoyable read. I would definitely pick up more books by Adrienne Tooley whether it is in this world (which would be really great) or another magical world.
Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher, Margaret K. McElderry Books for providing me with an e-arc for an honest review.
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