First off, I would like to thank the publisher and author for providing me this ARC to review. Please note that the version I read was an advanced copy, and certain events/language may be changed in the published edition.

Unfortunately, I DNFed this book at 40%, as it just wasn’t what I expected and way too many things were putting me off.

I was quite intrigued by the historical setting and the hint of darkness and a witch, but that didn’t quite seem to be the main purpose of the tale. The main focus, at least for the first 40%, was on the messed up family relations, and the low self esteem of our main character, Lydia.

The first main issue I had with this was Lydia. She is our witch in the story, but in 40% of the book, this is only vaguely mentioned 3 times, of how she feels a need to release her anger and that just so happens to be magical. The first time was not fully explained, as she releases her anger on a boy and then the boy is seriously injured. The details are brushed over, and we don’t hear much of what happens next or anything. The other two instances are just her anger rising, before she forces herself to calm down because she doesn’t want a repeat of what happened with the boy when she was young. Besides her being good with herbs, this is the only witchy stuff that happens, and nothing about it is actually explained (though I feel this will happen later in the book).

Additionally, the book is also sold as one about a spooky manor, and hidden secrets, and while this did come up within the story, it also felt like a background story in the portion of the novel I read. We have your standard slamming doors, neighbors telling you there’s something off about the house, some ghost sightings, and that’s it. This lack of happening, lack of build-up, kept me from being at all frightened or intrigued by the mystery behind Willow Hall, and didn’t want me to keep reading.

Now, the above two reasons are things that disappointed, but would not have necessarily stopped me from continuing just on their own. Lots of books have boring build-ups, and I’ve gotten through some before to find fantastic endings. However, the reasons below are what pushed me to actually stop.

First, I want to warn other readers by stating there is an animal death early on in this book, and I fear there might be another later. This first death was described in such a way that made me imagine quite a gruesome scene, and I only wish these strong, frightening descriptions were used in moments that would have been better for it.

Secondly, the scandal behind the Montrose family moving is not the sort of scandal I like reading about at all, especially not when the perpetrator of it finds nothing wrong with what was done. While the others, especially the narrator, denounce what was done, it still seems to play a large role in the book, and I didn’t feel like sticking around to see what the inevitable aftermath will be.

Thirdly, the focus of the book is sometimes this awkward sister rivalry between Catherine and Lydia for men. Catherine is the standard gorgeous older sister that has no regard for her sister’s feelings, and enjoys flaunting her beauty to get what she wants. She manipulates Lydia, she takes from Lydia, and Lydia only ever hides away from the confrontation, sometimes being nice to Catherine for no reason. Additionally, Lydia is always comparing herself to her sister, and constantly comments on how plain she is, how no one will ever love her, etc. While I’m not saying narrators with low self esteem are bad, this just isn’t what I expected from this story. I didn’t want to read about two sisters competing for the affections of certain men, or of the narrator constantly being put down and used by her sister.

Additionally, I just didn’t like where the story was going. Spoilers

Spoiler

(Emmeline has just died, Lydia just tried to kill herself, and now Mr. Barrett/John is finally kind of admitting that he likes Lydia more than her sister. I just feel like this, on top of the incest + pregnant sister + dead kitten just pushes me away from this book too much).

What I read, in terms of writing and development and such, wasn’t necessarily bad, but there was nothing in the story to keep me reading, to make me want to stick around.