Unapologetic Reviews

I read Weyward by Emilia Hart as part of my Read-Witch-a-Thon 2026, and this book was definitely witchy. It combines historical fiction, contemporary fiction, and witchcraft in a story about three generations of women who are connected not only by blood, but also by their experiences of abuse, their relationships with nature, and their struggle to take control of their own lives. I gave this book five stars, not just because I enjoyed the story and its witchcraft, but because it affected me emotionally in ways I hadn't expected. The story takes place across three timelines, each following a different woman from the Weyward family. The earliest is set in 1619, during the reign of James I, and follows Altha Weyward, a young woman who is accused of witchcraft after a local man dies under suspicious circumstances. The second timeline takes place during the Second World War and follows Violet, a young aristocratic girl who lives in a grand country house with her father and younger br...

I read The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina by Zoraida Córdova as part of my October 2026 Read-Witch-a-Thon. This is another book featuring witches, although I would categorize it more as magical realism than traditional witchcraft. I gave it four stars because I really enjoyed the story, its characters, and its magical atmosphere, but I found the pacing extremely uneven. For a large portion of the book, very little happens, and then suddenly everything starts moving at lightning speed. The story revolves around the Montoya family, whose matriarch, Orquídea Divina, has lived a rather mysterious life. She has had several husbands and numerous children, resulting in an enormous family tree that I wouldn't even attempt to recreate. She lives in a place called Four Rivers, where she has created a home surrounded by fertile land and an abundance of plants. However, when she sends letters to her living children and grandchildren announcing that she is dying and inviting them to collect...

I read Witch Daughter by Tanaz Bhathena as part of my Read Witch-a-Thon, which I'm doing throughout October. I gave this book four stars, and I picked it because I was intrigued by the idea of reading about witches from a non-Western culture. The story takes place in pre-Islamic Persia and incorporates elements of Persian mythology and Zoroastrianism, a religion I knew practically nothing about. I was excited to explore a culture, a mythology, and a religious tradition that were completely outside my usual reading experience. The story takes place primarily in Samangan, a small kingdom ruled by a king whose daughter, Tahmineh, is considered a witch. However, she is not exactly the kind of witch we would usually imagine. Her mother is a daeva, a supernatural being who lives in a lake and can disguise herself as a human. She once took on human form, married the king, and gave birth to Tahmineh, but eventually had to return to the lake, leaving her daughter behind. At the beginning...

I read The Witch by Freida McFadden for two reasons. First, it was part of my October Read-Witch-a-Thon, and second, it was my October 2026 Pick of the Month. This was also my very first Freida McFadden book, which is rather surprising considering how enormously popular she is. I've heard plenty of opinions about her writing, both good and bad, but I'd never actually tried any of her books myself. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, so I went into this one with an open mind, curious to see whether her writing would work for me. And I must say, I was impressed! I gave this book five stars, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The Witch is a mystery thriller told across two timelines, one set in the present day and the other in seventeenth-century Massachusetts. Both stories revolve around Pemberton Manor, an old house with a rather disturbing history, and the women whose lives become entangled with it. In the present-day timeline, we follow Julia Barlow, a young...

I read A Time of Witches by Madeline Martin as part of my Read-Witch-a-Thon 2026, and this turned out to be one of the better books I've read for the challenge. I really enjoyed the combination of historical fiction, witchcraft, mystery, and time travel, especially because the story follows two women living centuries apart whose fates are closely connected. The novel has two timelines. In the present day, we follow Lilith Legare, a young woman living in Savannah, Georgia, whose mother has recently died. While going through her mother's belongings, Lilith discovers research into their family history, which leads her to an old manor house in England called Brackenmere. She has also been experiencing strange dreams and visions, including a warning that she is going to disappear. Somehow, her family's past seems to be connected to whatever is happening to her, so she decides to travel to England to investigate. When Lilith arrives at Brackenmere, she discovers that the man...

I read Henry Tudor Must Die by Jillian Laine as part of the Read Witch-a-Thon 2026, which is my own witchy October reading challenge, and I gave it three stars. On paper, this should have been a five-star book for me. I love witches and magic, I love historical fiction, and the Tudor period is one of my favourite historical eras and one I know quite a lot about. Add Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon teaming up to take revenge on Henry VIII, and really, what more could I ask for? Unfortunately, while I loved the premise, I never became emotionally invested in the people carrying it. The story begins shortly before Anne Boleyn's execution. Anne is a witch, and magic gives her a way to escape her fate, although it comes at a considerable physical cost. Catherine of Aragon has also faked her death, and the two former rivals find themselves working together. Both have lost almost everything because of Henry, and both are particularly concerned about their daughters, Mary and Eliz...

I read The Witches of Cambridge by Alice Hoffman as part of the 2026 PopSugar Reading Challenge, for prompt number 33, "a book about college". I also made it the first book of my October 2026 Read Witch-a-Thon, so I was killing two birds with one stone. Unfortunately, this was not the strongest start to my witchy reading month. I think this is another case where the blurb gave me a very different idea of the book I was going to read. Based on the description, I imagined two young witches arriving at Radcliffe College in 1950s Cambridge, joining Lilith House, essentially a sorority house for witches, and then realizing that girls from the society were disappearing. Naturally, I assumed Ava and Lauren would team up to figure out what was happening. This was my first Alice Hoffman novel, although of course I knew her as the author of Practical Magic , and it is immediately obvious why she has had such a long career. Her prose is gorgeous. The descriptions of Cambridge, the c...

I read Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie for the Read Christie 2026 Reading Challenge. This year’s overall theme is “Biggest, Best and Beloved,” and the October prompt was “Best Cold Case,” which is an extremely appropriate category for this book because the murder at the centre of the story has been sleeping for almost twenty years. There is also something a little sad about reading Sleeping Murder because it was the final Miss Marple novel to be published. It came out posthumously in 1976, although Christie had actually written it decades earlier, during the Second World War, and deliberately kept it back for later publication. So it is not really an elderly Christie saying goodbye to Miss Marple. Still, knowing that this was the last Miss Marple novel readers received gives it a strange sense of finality, particularly when the book itself contains some lovely references to her earlier cases. The story begins with Gwenda Reed, a young woman who has recently arrived in England fr...

I read Jackaby by William Ritter as part of the 2026 PopSugar Reading Challenge. This was for prompt number 19, "a book about teen angst", and I think seventeen year old Abigail Rook running away from home, joining a dinosaur dig in Eastern Europe, and then deciding on impulse to sail to America rather than return to her parents definitely qualifies. The book takes place in 1892, which I found particularly funny because I recently read The Yellow Wallpaper, which was published in 1892. What are the chances? Apparently I am accidentally spending quite a lot of time in 1892 at the moment. Our POV character is Abigail Rook, a seventeen year old English girl who has recently arrived in New Fiddleham, New England. She comes from a fairly intellectual family, but she is frustrated by the limitations placed on her because she is a girl. She wants adventure. When she is prevented from joining her father on his travels, she eventually takes matters into her own hands and joins a pale...

One woman's utopia is another man's dystopia. I read Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman after hearing about it while I was reading The Yellow Wallpaper , and I was immediately intrigued by the idea of a feminist utopia written in 1915. I'm actually much more familiar with dystopias than utopias. Dystopia is one of my favourite genres, even though I don't read it that often anymore, and I've read most of the classics. So I was curious. What would a feminist writing more than a hundred years ago consider an ideal society for women? At first, Herland sounds pretty great. The story follows three American men who are exploring a remote part of South America when they hear rumours about a mysterious country inhabited entirely by women. They eventually manage to enter this isolated land and discover an advanced civilisation that has existed without men for about two thousand years. And, obviously, the first question is: if there are no men, where are all these women c...