“There are spells for breaking and spells for mending. But there are no spells for forgetting.”

TW: abduction, abuse, addiction, alcohol, animal death, blood, bullying, cancer, child abuse, death, death of a loved one, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, fire/fire injury, gun violence, injury/injury detail, miscarriage, murder, panic attacks/disorders, physical abuse, pregnancy, self-harm, sexism, sexual content, suicide, terminal illness, toxic relationship, violence.

Beautifully atmospheric, but lacking in nearly every other way.

After struggling to get into the story (I think the beginning was reminding me too much of A River Enchanted), I wasn't expecting to read this book so fast - despite it being relatively short. However, I flew through it. A witchy mystery on an island off the coast of Washington was almost right up my alley, if the execution had been different.

I liked the book, but it was... just okay, which bums me out. The characters were aggravating (they're all supposed to be flawed, I didn't mind that, I just wish they hadn't felt so bland and childish) and the mystery was less of a mystery and more of a "follow us for 360+ pages as we try to figure out what you've known since the beginning".

With that being said, I still had a fun time with this. If you're looking for an atmospheric, quick read with ancestral magic and won't mind a heavily flawed plot, you might have fun with it as well! But I wouldn't expect much more than that.