The spellbinding tale of six queer witches forging their own paths, shrouded in the mist, magic, and secrets of the ancient California redwoods.

Thank you to Net Galley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Author: Amy Rose Capetta

Candlewick Press

LGBTQIA, Teens & YA

Publication Date: 14 May 2019

Rating: 4/5 Stars

“Danny didn’t know what she was looking for when she and her mother spread out a map of the United States and Danny put her finger down on Tempest, California. What she finds are the Grays: a group of friends who throw around terms like queer and witch like they’re ordinary and everyday, though they feel like an earthquake to Danny. But Danny didn’t just find the Grays. They cast a spell that calls her halfway across the country, because she has something they need: she can bring back Imogen, the most powerful of the Grays.”

Review 

You had me at queer and witches.

What I liked most about this book is the writing style. There’s a lot of detail and I felt immersed in the story when I got into it, but it did take me a while. The beginning is intriguing, as death sets the story off, but then I wasn’t sure where it was going to go.

Each of the characters is different. The witches have different abilities with different sexualities. They’re open and don’t care what others think, despite everyone calling them the “Weird Sisters.”

Danny gets thrown into this world and wants to be accepted by the Grays. At home, she had a hard time connecting to anyone, whether it be girls romantically or just as friends.  She’s from a close-minded town and moving to one such the opposite is the perfect way for her to embrace who she is. However, her mom doesn’t trust her so much after the things she’s done at home and Danny is constantly pushing her luck.

Quibbles

One of the things that absolutely annoyed me, and it has nothing to do with the book, is the format and how it appeared on Kindle. You see, the book has different points of views, sometimes from Danny, sometimes from the Grays and others. The names would get cut off and sometimes I didn’t know who the chapter was starting with until I started reading. That goes for the first word in the chapter as well. Towards the end, it became easier but for a while, it took me out of the story.

It also flips between past and present (not a lot but at times) and it would take me a paragraph to figure where the story was in its timeline.

Then there are the characters, which I said are all different and you can distinguish who is who, but I also wanted to know more about them. It’s not so much a complaint, but just me liking the characters enough to want to know them better.

Overall 

I always enjoy reading a story where the characters are gay, out, and don’t care. It takes Danny a while to understand she can be that person and I liked following her story of becoming more of who she is as she dabbles not only in witchcraft but with her own abilities. She does have a thing for one of the Grays that grows as the story goes on.

There are some twists in there that you don’t see coming, more towards the end, and the mystery around it all keeps you reading. What happened to Imogen? Is she behind the mysterious killings in the forest or are the Grays as bad as the town says they are?

It took me a little longer to get into the story, but once I did, I kept going.

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