I'll Be Thinking About This For A While
I really enjoyed the story. It was slow paced and had a ton of details about Linden's tiny little Appalachian town, history and mythology that really helped build up the suspense and set the scene. I especially loved the details from the James family book that were interspersed when the months changed as they really helped set the tone for what was to come in the section of chapters. I truly loved how the magical elements in the story were so kind of minor and seemingly innocent that it kept you guessing as to whether or not the mystery of Linden's missing day and the murders that had happened were going to end up being caused by a supernatural being (the moth-winged man) or be human depravity. It had a Practical Magic vibe that I really enjoyed and I wish it had kept it throughout, but...
about 80% of the way through it just gave up and had a relatively minor character up until that point just tell us what was going on. It was jarring, it felt very out of place and out of character for that particular person and it honestly ruined the whole feel of the first half of the book. We're literally sitting there with Linden while she's working a spell and then suddenly she's outside talking to (spoiler) who's like yes, here's what really went down. It came out of nowhere. It felt like the author had no idea how to end the book so just threw her hands up and gave us a plain spoken Suriel. I don't know. I still enjoyed it, I will still recommend it, but it went from a five star read to high three / low four because of it.
about 80% of the way through it just gave up and had a relatively minor character up until that point just tell us what was going on. It was jarring, it felt very out of place and out of character for that particular person and it honestly ruined the whole feel of the first half of the book. We're literally sitting there with Linden while she's working a spell and then suddenly she's outside talking to (spoiler) who's like yes, here's what really went down. It came out of nowhere. It felt like the author had no idea how to end the book so just threw her hands up and gave us a plain spoken Suriel. I don't know. I still enjoyed it, I will still recommend it, but it went from a five star read to high three / low four because of it.