Reviewed by Donna

TITLE: Witch’s Woods

AUTHOR: A.T. Weaver

PUBLISHER: CoolDudes Publishing

LENGTH: 199 Pages

RELEASE DATE: November 20, 2017

BLURB:

In the late 10th century, a magical portal was discovered between a grove of oak trees in Ireland and a grove of redwoods in what would become the state of Oregon. Since then, the Fitzgerald family of witches has guarded both ends of the portal. Now, an unscrupulous developer and a corrupt governor plan to raize the redwoods known as The Witches’ Woods and build an exclusive resort. It’s up to Sean Fitzgerald and his family to save the trees and protect the secret of the portal.

James Buckler has been sent to oversee the removal of the woods and build the resort. Two things stand in the way of a relationship between him and Sean. First, he has never admitted, even to himself, that he’s gay. Second, he doesn’t believe in witches.

REVIEW:

This book is difficult to review because I really wanted to like it, but somehow I just really didn’t. Well, it’s not so much I disliked it, but it definitely wasn’t what I was expecting. The blurb sounds super interesting, and I love that cover, but execution of the story just didn’t do it for me.

Our main character here is Sean Fitzgerald, who I liked and found interesting. Sean is the Fitzgerald who is the current guardian of the Oregon end of a magical portal. The other end of which is situated near the Fitzgerald’s ancestral home in Ireland. James is Sean’s love interest. Although when we first meet James he’s engaged to a woman, believes homosexuals should burn in hell, and is generally a complete twat. Unfortunately I did not like James. While a dickish character isn’t anything new to the romance genre, if the man is one of our main characters you expect some sort of growth and redemption by the end. While James finally admitted that he was gay, realized he wasn’t going to burn in hell, and ceased all twatish behavior, it all came about much too easily. The “goodguys” announced that James was going to quit his evil job and join Team Fitzgerald, and just like that he was redeemed.

Beyond the two main characters we have Andy, Sean’s BFF, who I also liked, and who coincidently also ends up being related to the Fitzgerald family. And who ends up dating Sean’s cousin. And who ends up being a witch himself. Then we have the rest of Sean’s extended family, Andy’s whole family, James’s adopted family, James’s huge birth family and some bad guys thrown in for good measure. And we were given names and connections for ALL OF THEM. Oh, and the good towns folk who don’t seem sure if they should rally behind the witches who are trying to save the town, or race for their pitchforks and torches.

The thing is, parts of this book were very interesting. I loved all the witchy stuff when the Fitzgerald’s actually got around to using their magic to stop the destruction of Witch’s Woods. And some of the genealogy was interesting, to a point. But the author went into way too much detail about a lot of things. There was also so much repetition that I wondered if these characters ever listened when they talked to each other. Or more importantly, why an editor or beta reader didn’t pick up on these issues.

This book wasn’t bad it just wasn’t well finished. I can tell that the author put considerable effort into the witch/druid elements of the story, so readers interested in that might find this book of interest.

RATING: 

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