I received an eARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

3/3.5 stars.

If you can get through the first nine chapters, things start to really come together.

I was excited about this book due to the synopsis stating bad ass witches with an undercurrent of LGBTQIA rep. And it does have this, however, it takes a long time to get good.

The first nine chapters feel as if you have been dumped into the middle of a story and you have no idea what is happening. It feels as if it should be a sequel, not a first in the series. So much information is thrown at you with no background, and you have no idea what to feel for these characters.

But if you stick it out, persevere, and push past chapter nine, there are some really great moments in this book. Unfortunately most of the main characters are very similar, bar one. So I would have liked a little more diversity and fleshing out of the characters. And the witchhunters barely feature in this, apart from at the beginning, which honestly felt like a middle not a start. So the timeline felt like it could have been tidied up a little. Rearranged.

I enjoyed the deadly undercurrent to the book, and the friendship as it grew and I also liked the new take on what are this world's version of a grimoire.