Monday, November 29, 2021

Book Review: The Bitterwine Oath by Hannah West

Title: The Bitterwine Oath
Author: Hannah West
Genre: Horror; Magic; Mystery; Witches; Young Adult
Publication Date: December 1st 2020
Publisher: Holiday House

San Solano, Texas, is a quaint town known for its charm, hospitality, and history of murder. Twice now, twelve men have been brutally killed, and no one knows who did it. A shadowy witch? A copycat killer? Or a man-hating murderess?

Eighteen-year-old Natalie Colter is sure that the rumors about her great-great-grandmother's cult of wronged women are just gossip, but that doesn't stop the true-crime writers and dark tourism bloggers from capitalizing on the town's reputation. It's an urban legend that's hard to ignore, and it gets harder when Nat learns that the sisterhood is real. And magical. And they want her to join.

The more Nat learns of the Wardens' supernatural history, the more she wonders about the real culprits behind the town's ritualistic murders. Are the Wardens protecting San Solano from even darker forces? There are shadows in the woods, bones on the outskirts of town, and questions Nat needs answered.

But everything becomes more urgent when people start getting marked as new victims--including Levi Langford, the boy whose kiss haunted Nat for a year. With Levi in danger, doing nothing would be harder than fighting back.

Nat knows that no one is safe. Can she and the sisterhood stop the true evil from claiming their town?

 

Rating

*A Thank you to edelweiss + for allowing me to read this. This is my fair and honest review*

Due to the synopsis I had pretty high expectations for this book unfortunately it did not deliver. For me, the book just took way too long to start. I was about 33% in before anything remotely interesting happened. It was because of this that when the book had it's interesting moments I was not as invested as I felt I should have been. 

This also took me way too long to read because I kept stopping and switching to other books that could hold my attention. I did not mind the characters but none of them really stood out to me too much. Natalie and Levi were a bit bland to me, but I did enjoy the "flashback" scenes and fictional book inserts. Surprisingly for a book about witchcraft not a lot of spells and magic until the end.

Overall, Not a bad book just not my Cup of tea, but it might be yours.

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