Great Installation!
Thanks to Netgalley and Tor Books for an advanced reader copy of Bloodwitch!
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I’ve had to sit on this review for about a week because I’m still trying to process my reading experience of Bloodwitch, the third book in the Witchlands series by Susan Dennard (or I guess fourth if you include Sightwitch). There were three major things working against my immediate love of it, two of which are completely external to the story itself, so I didn’t want to let those things prejudice my perspective unduly. Now, those things are:
1) I realized I just don’t trust Susan Dennard as an author. I’m not spoiling anything else from past books, but she has, in the past, done things that make me wary of trusting in the outcome of a book she has written. I’m happy to chat about this more elsewhere, but basically, it ended up creating an undue sense of anxiety every time I picked up the book, convinced something catastrophic was going to happen at every turn.
2) The ARC of Bloodwitch was an ebook that was RIDDLED with serious errors and made it a very, very difficult reading experience. It wasn’t like a pre-edit copy or anything; it was the fact that something got messed up in the conversion of it and so specific letter formulations didn’t transfer… and were left blank. So, I would be reading a sentence and it would be like this: “Sa felt a bit o ; is was unusual.” Now, this is not a direct quote from the book, merely an expedited way of explaining the most pervasive issue, which was that this sentence ACTUALLY communicates: “Safi felt a bit off; this was unusual.”
I know right.
All of the “th” “fi” “ff” and some random other letters were left out of words. By the end of reading this copy of Bloodwitch, I had legitimately convinced myself that Safi was now just Sa. It gave me a headache and took much longer to read than it should have. And speaking of taking much longer to read....
3) My third and final issue does relate back to the Witchlands series: there are so many freaking things going on all at once that it is really, really difficult for me to remember what happened. I read a lot of books-- last year I read over 200. I have a fairly good memory for a lot of plots and while I enjoy doing a reread before a much anticipated release, I usually save this for the last book in a series. But the combination of the time between Windwitch and Bloodwitch and the fact that Susan Dennard includes very little summary of the past book(s) in her writing means that I picked up this book and after a few attempts, had to go back and reread Windwitch before picking up Bloodwitch. This was unexpected and a bit frustrating for me and made me a bit more snappish than usual when reading Bloodwitch.
Basically, all these things combined to make reading Bloodwitch a very, very unpleasant experience and I probably would have given it a low rating out of spite. Instead, I decided to sit on it and I’m glad I did. Because the story itself-- the character development, the continued world building, and the relationships that are cemented-- is actually really good and made an excellent next installment in the Witchlands series. (Please note that this review might contain spoilers for Truthwitch and Windwitch.)
Chronologically, Bloodwitch follows events two weeks after the conclusion of Windwitch and the characters are all over the place and in strange combinations. Bloodwitch, as the name might suggest, follows more of Aeduan’s backstory and opens immediately with a scene of him playing as a child and the events that lead to him being indoctrinated into hating himself, which is sort of a running theme in the book. Aeduan and Iseult are with Owl, an extremely powerful Earthwitch child, on the run from various forces all trying to track them down, while Merik has left his kingdom once more with Cam and Ryber to figure out more about the Fury and his presently half-dead state. Safi and the Marstoki Empress are hanging out in Marstok, attempting to cleanse the Marstok court of those who have been working against the Empress, when an unexpected relation of Safi’s appears and throws her whole dynamic into chaos. Vivi Nihar has been trying her hardest to care for her people after the city was nearly flooded and destroyed, but her father and the members of her council undermine her at every turn. Styx disappears and ends up with Cam and Ryber, and basically, there are all of these different relationships and dynamics all happening at once. Esme is being a puppeteer and there is bloodshed everywhere. It is a giant whirlwind of narrative perspectives.
Things I Loved:
- The Aeduan/Iseult dynamic that started building in Windwitch continues on here and I am all for it. It is amazing and those two characters have such a dynamic tension that I was up to my eyeballs in angst. It was wonderful.
- I feel like the underlying theme of this book was “people keep trying to dictate the terms of the existence and success of young women and that is SHITTY” and I was there for it. It was done subtly enough that I didn’t feel I was being hit over the head with it as a political message, but the entire storyline with Safi in Marstok was incredibly powerful on a number of levels.
- The character dynamics are unexpected. I anticipated that Owl and Iseult, for example, would be immediately friendly and Owl did every single thing in her power to thwart Iseult. This made a lot of things feel real and tangible, rather than idealized or romanticized relationships.
- Vivia (who, let’s be honest, is Yara Greyjoy) is beaten down time and again and gets back up, all while having fantastic revelations about her mother’s time as queen, her father’s capabilities as a ruler, and her mother’s death by suicide. I loved her internal struggle about those two halves of her own identity as she battled others for power, trying to prove to herself that she was worthy of the crown while simultaneously making others believe it.
- So many other things that would all be spoilers. The scene(s) in the mountain with the doorways were incredibly epic; Aeduan and Iseult in the Origin Well was beautiful and memorable, etc etc. There’s just so much that happens and so many characters.
Things I Liked:
- The fact that established past ships aren’t necessarily taken for granted and new people are thrown in and introduced in a way that makes much more sense. Without spoilers, I love where I think Vivia is headed by the end of this book in that regard.
- The book dealt with some heavy issues and did it well. That said, I believe in content warnings and think that this book should come with some. There were scenes of graphic violence and scenes of suicide present in this book when I didn’t expect it and it was brutal. I felt like the level of cruelty and violence was really dialed up to ten in Bloodwitch and that deserved a little note or something. I definitely would have read it anyway… but it would have been nice to have a sort of heads up.
- There weren’t really any dull moments. The pacing was intense, especially with so many POV changes, because I’d get to a cliffhanger in one section and then get through three more chapters with alternating POVs that all had their own cliffhangers. It propelled the story along super fast… but in a really, really anxiety-provoking way. Bloodwitch is not a comfortable, relaxing read and while the story is better off for that, I think my blood pressure was not.
Things I Didn’t Like:
- While I frequently reread books, I don’t love NEEDING to reread them to understand the basics of what is going on. I felt like beginning this book was like being hit over the head with a sledgehammer of “all the things I completely forgot were going on” and it was under duress that I reread Windwitch quickly before turning back to Bloodwitch, which meant that my review was not actually an advanced one. Basically, I needed some kind of mild refresher on what the hell was happening. It doesn’t need to be in the writing of the first few chapters. Cassandra Clare has this nifty little trick where she includes an introduction that neatly explains the Shadowhunter world to newcomers in a few quick pages, summing up the important points without resorting to spoiling past work-- just in case you’re new to the Shadowhunter world. It’s fantastic. I don’t need to read it, but IF I DID, IT WOULD BE THERE. The Witchlands series desperately needs something like this.
- Honestly, I was really disappointed in Merik’s entire story arc throughout Bloodwitch. I felt like it took him too long to come to his “big revelation” at the end and that it was too close to how he realized that Vivia was actually a good person and a fit ruler.
- Similarly, the storyline that follows Styx just made me lose interest and I sort of skimmed those pages at best. Maybe I was so excited to read more about other people that her story simply took a backseat, but I’m not sure.
- Without spoiling anything, I’d like to submit a complaint about the number of non-living people in this book. The number of people whose threads had been plucked by Esme or who were yet another hand of the Raider King and his Puppeteer was absolutely ridiculous and it makes me worried that the last two books are basically going to be gigantic bloodstains on the former continent of the Witchlands. Now, as we realized with Merik at the end of Windwitch, there’s a chance he’s not dead (maybe?) so I don’t know if there’s possible redemption for folks who were in this situation… but it makes me nervous for future installations.
Overall, I really liked this book and I continue to enjoy the Witchlands series by Susan Dennard. But for once, I think, I’m going to take my own advice on this series and wait until the fifth book is released before picking it up again so I can do one proper read through of the entire thing, from the beginning, and enjoy and follow the story without needing to consult internet summaries or take notes on who is who. So, I suppose I will be seeing all of these characters again in 2021.
I would definitely recommend this book and this series. If you’re a fan of epic world building and complicated character dynamics, then this is certainly a book for you. Fans of Falling Kingdoms and Game of Thrones would definitely feel right at home with the Witchlands series, which has the same feeling as those books but with a girl power streak that I love and admire. If you enjoy books with multiple different story arcs/narrative perspectives contained within it, you’ll really like the Witchland books and Bloodwitch in particular. If you’re already a Witchlands fan, then Bloodwitch is an excellent addition to an already thrilling series. But if you have a tendency towards anxiety and like to be able to get a firm grasp on characters and where they’re going, you might want to wait to continue the series (or start the series) until all five books are completed and out. And if you’re not one for multiple POVs, I would not recommend this book or this series for you.
4/5 stars
--
I’ve had to sit on this review for about a week because I’m still trying to process my reading experience of Bloodwitch, the third book in the Witchlands series by Susan Dennard (or I guess fourth if you include Sightwitch). There were three major things working against my immediate love of it, two of which are completely external to the story itself, so I didn’t want to let those things prejudice my perspective unduly. Now, those things are:
1) I realized I just don’t trust Susan Dennard as an author. I’m not spoiling anything else from past books, but she has, in the past, done things that make me wary of trusting in the outcome of a book she has written. I’m happy to chat about this more elsewhere, but basically, it ended up creating an undue sense of anxiety every time I picked up the book, convinced something catastrophic was going to happen at every turn.
2) The ARC of Bloodwitch was an ebook that was RIDDLED with serious errors and made it a very, very difficult reading experience. It wasn’t like a pre-edit copy or anything; it was the fact that something got messed up in the conversion of it and so specific letter formulations didn’t transfer… and were left blank. So, I would be reading a sentence and it would be like this: “Sa felt a bit o ; is was unusual.” Now, this is not a direct quote from the book, merely an expedited way of explaining the most pervasive issue, which was that this sentence ACTUALLY communicates: “Safi felt a bit off; this was unusual.”
I know right.
All of the “th” “fi” “ff” and some random other letters were left out of words. By the end of reading this copy of Bloodwitch, I had legitimately convinced myself that Safi was now just Sa. It gave me a headache and took much longer to read than it should have. And speaking of taking much longer to read....
3) My third and final issue does relate back to the Witchlands series: there are so many freaking things going on all at once that it is really, really difficult for me to remember what happened. I read a lot of books-- last year I read over 200. I have a fairly good memory for a lot of plots and while I enjoy doing a reread before a much anticipated release, I usually save this for the last book in a series. But the combination of the time between Windwitch and Bloodwitch and the fact that Susan Dennard includes very little summary of the past book(s) in her writing means that I picked up this book and after a few attempts, had to go back and reread Windwitch before picking up Bloodwitch. This was unexpected and a bit frustrating for me and made me a bit more snappish than usual when reading Bloodwitch.
Basically, all these things combined to make reading Bloodwitch a very, very unpleasant experience and I probably would have given it a low rating out of spite. Instead, I decided to sit on it and I’m glad I did. Because the story itself-- the character development, the continued world building, and the relationships that are cemented-- is actually really good and made an excellent next installment in the Witchlands series. (Please note that this review might contain spoilers for Truthwitch and Windwitch.)
Chronologically, Bloodwitch follows events two weeks after the conclusion of Windwitch and the characters are all over the place and in strange combinations. Bloodwitch, as the name might suggest, follows more of Aeduan’s backstory and opens immediately with a scene of him playing as a child and the events that lead to him being indoctrinated into hating himself, which is sort of a running theme in the book. Aeduan and Iseult are with Owl, an extremely powerful Earthwitch child, on the run from various forces all trying to track them down, while Merik has left his kingdom once more with Cam and Ryber to figure out more about the Fury and his presently half-dead state. Safi and the Marstoki Empress are hanging out in Marstok, attempting to cleanse the Marstok court of those who have been working against the Empress, when an unexpected relation of Safi’s appears and throws her whole dynamic into chaos. Vivi Nihar has been trying her hardest to care for her people after the city was nearly flooded and destroyed, but her father and the members of her council undermine her at every turn. Styx disappears and ends up with Cam and Ryber, and basically, there are all of these different relationships and dynamics all happening at once. Esme is being a puppeteer and there is bloodshed everywhere. It is a giant whirlwind of narrative perspectives.
Things I Loved:
- The Aeduan/Iseult dynamic that started building in Windwitch continues on here and I am all for it. It is amazing and those two characters have such a dynamic tension that I was up to my eyeballs in angst. It was wonderful.
- I feel like the underlying theme of this book was “people keep trying to dictate the terms of the existence and success of young women and that is SHITTY” and I was there for it. It was done subtly enough that I didn’t feel I was being hit over the head with it as a political message, but the entire storyline with Safi in Marstok was incredibly powerful on a number of levels.
- The character dynamics are unexpected. I anticipated that Owl and Iseult, for example, would be immediately friendly and Owl did every single thing in her power to thwart Iseult. This made a lot of things feel real and tangible, rather than idealized or romanticized relationships.
- Vivia (who, let’s be honest, is Yara Greyjoy) is beaten down time and again and gets back up, all while having fantastic revelations about her mother’s time as queen, her father’s capabilities as a ruler, and her mother’s death by suicide. I loved her internal struggle about those two halves of her own identity as she battled others for power, trying to prove to herself that she was worthy of the crown while simultaneously making others believe it.
- So many other things that would all be spoilers. The scene(s) in the mountain with the doorways were incredibly epic; Aeduan and Iseult in the Origin Well was beautiful and memorable, etc etc. There’s just so much that happens and so many characters.
Things I Liked:
- The fact that established past ships aren’t necessarily taken for granted and new people are thrown in and introduced in a way that makes much more sense. Without spoilers, I love where I think Vivia is headed by the end of this book in that regard.
- The book dealt with some heavy issues and did it well. That said, I believe in content warnings and think that this book should come with some. There were scenes of graphic violence and scenes of suicide present in this book when I didn’t expect it and it was brutal. I felt like the level of cruelty and violence was really dialed up to ten in Bloodwitch and that deserved a little note or something. I definitely would have read it anyway… but it would have been nice to have a sort of heads up.
- There weren’t really any dull moments. The pacing was intense, especially with so many POV changes, because I’d get to a cliffhanger in one section and then get through three more chapters with alternating POVs that all had their own cliffhangers. It propelled the story along super fast… but in a really, really anxiety-provoking way. Bloodwitch is not a comfortable, relaxing read and while the story is better off for that, I think my blood pressure was not.
Things I Didn’t Like:
- While I frequently reread books, I don’t love NEEDING to reread them to understand the basics of what is going on. I felt like beginning this book was like being hit over the head with a sledgehammer of “all the things I completely forgot were going on” and it was under duress that I reread Windwitch quickly before turning back to Bloodwitch, which meant that my review was not actually an advanced one. Basically, I needed some kind of mild refresher on what the hell was happening. It doesn’t need to be in the writing of the first few chapters. Cassandra Clare has this nifty little trick where she includes an introduction that neatly explains the Shadowhunter world to newcomers in a few quick pages, summing up the important points without resorting to spoiling past work-- just in case you’re new to the Shadowhunter world. It’s fantastic. I don’t need to read it, but IF I DID, IT WOULD BE THERE. The Witchlands series desperately needs something like this.
- Honestly, I was really disappointed in Merik’s entire story arc throughout Bloodwitch. I felt like it took him too long to come to his “big revelation” at the end and that it was too close to how he realized that Vivia was actually a good person and a fit ruler.
- Similarly, the storyline that follows Styx just made me lose interest and I sort of skimmed those pages at best. Maybe I was so excited to read more about other people that her story simply took a backseat, but I’m not sure.
- Without spoiling anything, I’d like to submit a complaint about the number of non-living people in this book. The number of people whose threads had been plucked by Esme or who were yet another hand of the Raider King and his Puppeteer was absolutely ridiculous and it makes me worried that the last two books are basically going to be gigantic bloodstains on the former continent of the Witchlands. Now, as we realized with Merik at the end of Windwitch, there’s a chance he’s not dead (maybe?) so I don’t know if there’s possible redemption for folks who were in this situation… but it makes me nervous for future installations.
Overall, I really liked this book and I continue to enjoy the Witchlands series by Susan Dennard. But for once, I think, I’m going to take my own advice on this series and wait until the fifth book is released before picking it up again so I can do one proper read through of the entire thing, from the beginning, and enjoy and follow the story without needing to consult internet summaries or take notes on who is who. So, I suppose I will be seeing all of these characters again in 2021.
I would definitely recommend this book and this series. If you’re a fan of epic world building and complicated character dynamics, then this is certainly a book for you. Fans of Falling Kingdoms and Game of Thrones would definitely feel right at home with the Witchlands series, which has the same feeling as those books but with a girl power streak that I love and admire. If you enjoy books with multiple different story arcs/narrative perspectives contained within it, you’ll really like the Witchland books and Bloodwitch in particular. If you’re already a Witchlands fan, then Bloodwitch is an excellent addition to an already thrilling series. But if you have a tendency towards anxiety and like to be able to get a firm grasp on characters and where they’re going, you might want to wait to continue the series (or start the series) until all five books are completed and out. And if you’re not one for multiple POVs, I would not recommend this book or this series for you.
4/5 stars