The Northern Witch's Book Blog

The Lamplighter  by Crystal J. Bell 2 out of 5 Synopsis It’s an honor to bring light to the dark. The nineteenth-century whaling village of Warbler is famous for its lucky ship figureheads—and infamous for people disappearing into the nightly fog. In this murky locale, the lamplighter is synonymous with safety and protection, and it’s a position Temperance assumes when her father is found hanging from one of the lampposts. Though Tempe proves competent, the town is still hesitant to let a woman handle this responsibility. When a girl disappears after two lamps go out, Tempe’s ability to provide for her mother and younger sister hangs in the balance. She scrambles for answers, hindered at every turn by the village authorities’ call for her removal. As more villagers vanish under her watch, Tempe discovers unsettling truths about the famous Warbler figureheads and her own beloved father. But her warnings of a monster are ignored, even by her own family. Now she must follow the light ...

And Put Away Childish Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky 4 out of 5 Synopsis Harry Bodie’s been called into the delightful fantasy world of his grandmother’s beloved children’s books. It’s not delightful here at all. All roads lead to Underhill, where it’s always winter, and never nice. Harry Bodie has a famous grandmother, who wrote beloved children’s books set in the delightful world of Underhill. Harry himself is a failing kids’ TV presenter whose every attempt to advance his career ends in self-sabotage. His family history seems to be nothing but an impediment. An impediment... or worse. What if Underhill is real? What if it has been waiting decades for a promised child to visit? What if it isn’t delightful at all? And what if its denizens have run out of patience and are taking matters into their own hands? Review Harry is an out-of-work TV presenter, who has lived his whole life in the shadow of his late-grandmother's popular children's books. Strange things start to happen, an...

The Seawomen by Chloe Timms 5 out of 5 Synopsis Esta has known nothing but Eden's Isle her whole life. Raised by her grandmother, after a fire claimed her parents and scarred her face, she's instructed to piety, to deference, and acquiescence by a religious society that will not suffer anything else. Cut off from the moral iniquity of the mainland, the island believes it can stay free of the Seawomen - creatures from the water that came upon land to corrupt God's creation and Man. The inhabitants fear the water and believe the only way to remain virtuous is to never enter it, and for the women to conceive within 12 months of their appointed motheryear. If they do not conceive, they're cast back into the ocean as a sacrifice in an act called the Untethering. Esta witnesses such an act as a child. Her childhood growing up on the island is fraught with tension as she comes to the terms with the prohibitive malaise of the culture she finds herself in. Before long, she gets ...

The Witch in the Well by Camilla Bruce 4 out of 5 Synopsis Once upon a time, the townspeople of F -. did something bad . . . Local schoolteacher Catherine Evans has made writing the definitive account of what happened when Ilsbeth Clark drowned in the well her life's work. Some don't want the past raked up, but Catherine is determined to shine a light upon that shameful event. Because Ilsbeth was an innocent, shunned and ostracized by rumour-mongers and ill-wishers, and someone has to speak up for her. And who better than Catherine, who has herself felt the sting and hurt of such whisperings? And then a childhood friend returns to F -. Elena is a successful author who's earned a certain celebrity. Now in search of a new subject, she announces her intention to write a book about the long-dead woman. And Elena has everything Catherine has not. A platform. And connections. And no one seems to care that this book will be pure speculation, tainting Ilsbeth's memory. Catherin...

All of Our Demise by Amanda Foody & C.L. Herman 4 out of 5 Synopsis The incredible conclusion to the tournament that started in All of Us Villains. I should warn you: this is going to be absolutely brutal . . . For the first time in this ancient, bloodstained story, the tournament is breaking. The boundaries between the city of Ilvernath and the arena have fallen. Reporters swarm the historic battlegrounds. A dead boy now lives again. And a new champion has entered the fray, one who seeks to break the curse for good... no matter how many lives are sacrificed in the process. As the curse teeters closer and closer to collapse, the surviving champions each face a choice: dismantle the tournament piece by piece, or fight to the death as this story always intended. Long-held alliances will be severed. Hearts will break. Lives will end. Because a tale as wicked as this one was never destined for happily ever after. Review The surviving champions have to come together, if they are going t...

The Direction of the Wind by Mansi Shah 3 out of 5 Synopsis A heartfelt story that spans continents and generations, about a young woman who searches for answers about a mother she barely remembers. Sophie Shah was six when she learned her mother, Nita, had died. For twenty-two years, she shouldered the burden of that loss. But when her father passes away, Sophie discovers a cache of hidden letters revealing a shattering her mother didn’t die. She left . Nita Shah had everything most women dreamed of in her hometown of Ahmedabad, India—a loving husband, a doting daughter, financial security—but in her heart, she felt like she was living a lie. Fueled by her creative ambitions, Nita moved to Paris, the artists’ capital of the world—even though it meant leaving her family behind. But once in Paris, Nita’s decision and its consequences would haunt her in ways she never expected. Now that Sophie knows the truth, she’s determined to find the mother who abandoned her. Sophie jets off to Pari...

The Darkest Sin by D.V. Bishop 5 out of 5 Synopsis The Darkest Sin is an atmospheric historical thriller by D. V. Bishop, set in Renaissance Florence and is the sequel to City of Vengeance. Florence. Spring, 1537. When Cesare Aldo investigates a report of intruders at a convent in the Renaissance city’s northern quarter, he enters a community divided by bitter rivalries and harbouring dark secrets. His case becomes far more complicated when a naked man’s body is found deep inside the convent, stabbed more than two dozen times. Unthinkable as it seems, all the evidence suggests one of the nuns must be the killer. Meanwhile, Constable Carlo Strocchi finds human remains pulled from the Arno that belong to an officer of the law missing since winter. The dead man had many enemies, but who would dare kill an official of the city’s most feared criminal court? As Aldo and Strocchi close in on the truth, identifying the killers will prove more treacherous than either of them could ever have ima...

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth 2 out of 5 Synopsis Our story begins in 1902, at The Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it The Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, The Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever—but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way. Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer, Merritt Emmons, ...

The Leviathan by Rosie Andrews 4 out of 5 Synopsis The most beguiling debut of 2022, perfect for fans of The Essex Serpent, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock and The Binding. She is awake... Norfolk, 1643. With civil war tearing England apart, reluctant soldier Thomas Treadwater is summoned home by his sister, who accuses a new servant of improper conduct with their widowed father. By the time Thomas returns home, his father is insensible, felled by a stroke, and their new servant is in prison, facing charges of witchcraft. Thomas prides himself on being a rational, modern man, but as he unravels the mystery of what has happened, he uncovers not a tale of superstition but something dark and ancient, linked to a shipwreck years before. Something has awoken, and now it will not rest. Richly researched, incredibly atmospheric, and deliciously unsettling, The Leviathan is set in England during a time of political turbulence and religious zealotry. It is a tale of family and loyalty, superstition...

The Last Graduate by Naomi Novak 2 out of 5 Synopsis A budding dark sorceress determined not to use her formidable powers uncovers yet more secrets about the workings of her world in the stunning sequel to A Deadly Education, the start of Naomi Novik's groundbreaking crossover series. At the Scholomance, El, Orion, and the other students are faced with their final year--and the looming specter of graduation, a deadly ritual that leaves few students alive in its wake. El is determined that her chosen group will survive, but it is a prospect that is looking harder by the day as the savagery of the school ramps up. Until El realizes that sometimes winning the game means throwing out all the rules . . . Review El is in her final year of the Scholomance, and despite her best efforts to push them away, she now has friends . They will have to work together to survive graduation. I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I have not read the first book in the s...

A Corruption of Blood by Ambrose Parry 5 out of 5 Synopsis Edinburgh. This city will bleed you dry. Dr Will Raven is a man seldom shocked by human remains, but even he is disturbed by the contents of a package washed up at the Port of Leith. Stranger still, a man Raven has long detested is pleading for his help to escape the hangman. Back in the townhouse of Dr James Simpson, Sarah Fisher has set her sights on learning to practise medicine. Almost everyone seems intent on dissuading her from this ambition, but when word reaches her that a woman has recently obtained a medical degree despite her gender, Sarah decides to seek her out. Raven’s efforts to prove his former adversary’s innocence are failing and he desperately needs Sarah’s help. Putting their feelings for one another aside, their investigations take them to both extremes of Edinburgh’s social divide, where they discover that wealth and status cannot alter a fate written in the blood. Review Dr Raven and Sarah have two sepera...

Black Witch Moon Tyburn, 1625. A young woman hanged as a witch. A doctor plagued by nightmares. Wracked by guilt, Robert Winter struggles with the notion that a witch may have been wrongly accused. But if that is so, what can he do about it? When strange things begin to happen, Winter’s understanding of good and evil are put to the test. Compelled to choose one or the other, he soon learns that taking sides is the least of his problems… In this horror series set in London, the novella Black Witch Moon is book #1 in the Black Witch Saga. Purchase Links https://geni.us/fU08JG ~Review~ Author Bio Colin Garrow grew up in a former mining town in Northumberland. He has worked in a plethora of professions including: taxi driver, antiques dealer, drama facilitator, theatre director and fish processor, and has occasionally masqueraded as a pirate. All Colin's books are available as eBooks and most are also out in paperback, too. His short stories have appeared in several literary mags, incl...

Black Witch Moon by Colin Garrow 3 out of 5 Synopsis Tyburn, 1625. A young woman hanged as a witch. A doctor plagued by nightmares. Wracked by guilt, Robert Winter struggles with the notion that a witch may have been wrongly accused. But if that is so, what can he do about it? When strange things begin to happen, Winter’s understanding of good and evil are put to the test. Compelled to choose one or the other, he soon learns that taking sides is the least of his problems… In this horror series set in London, the novella Black Witch Moon is book #1 in the Black Witch Saga. Review Doctor Winter was involved with a trial that ended with a witch being killed. Unfortunately, the witch doesn't want to stay dead. I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review. This novella follows Robert Winter, a professional doctor involved in a trial against a witch. It starts with execution day, and follows as Robert starts to investigate the investigation, as he's concerned she may be in...

Triflers Need Not Apply by Camilla Bruce 4 out of 5 Synopsis Early in life Bella Sorensen discovers the world is made only for men. They own everything: jobs, property, wives. But Bella understands what few others do: where women are concerned, men are weak. A woman unhampered by scruples can take from them what she wants. And so Bella sets out to prove to the world that a woman can be just as ruthless, black-hearted and single-minded as any man. Starting with her long suffering husband, Mads, Bella embarks on a killing spree the like of which has never been seen before nor since. And through it all her kind, older sister Nellie can only watch in horror as Bella's schemes to enrich herself and cut down the male population come to a glorious, dreadful fruition . . . Based on the true story of Belle Gunness whose murderous rampage began in Chicago in 1900, Triflers Need Not Apply is a novelistic tour de force exploring one woman's determination to pay men back for all they have t...

All of Us Villains by Amanda Foody & Christine Herman 4 out of 5 Synopsis The blockbuster co-writing debut of Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman, All of Us Villains begins a dark tale of ambition and magick... You Fell In Love With The Victors of The Hunger Games. Now Prepare To Meet The Villains of The Blood Veil. After the publication of a salacious tell-all book, the remote city of Ilvernath is thrust into worldwide spotlight. Tourists, protesters, and reporters flock to its spellshops and ruins to witness an ancient curse unfold: every generation, seven families name a champion among them to compete in a tournament to the death. The winner awards their family exclusive control over the city’s high magick supply, the most powerful resource in the world. In the past, the villainous Lowes have won nearly every tournament, and their champion is prepared to continue his family’s reign. But this year, thanks to the influence of their newfound notoriety, each of the champions has ...

Raising Hell by Bryony Pearce 3 out of 5 Synopsis Meet Ivy Elizabeth Mann: "I know what you're thinking, but I'm not half faery, or demon, or angel or anything like that. Mum's a Body Shop consultant living in a bungalow in Birmingham and Dad enters crossword competitions." Once upon a time, Ivy and her friends did a very stupid thing and now there's a rift letting dark matter into the world. Dark matter that manifests as black magic which actually works. Now every teenager with access to the Internet is raising hell. Literally. Ivy's doing her best to stem the tide, but her new job working school security barely pays the bills and there's only so much one girl with a machete (and a cat possessed by her own dead grandmother) can do against the forces of evil. Now she's facing a teenaged goth with an attitude, a dark cabal with a terrifying agenda and a potential zombie apocalypse. Ivy losing her job might be the best thing to happen to the world!  ...

The Shadow in the Glass by J.J.A. Harwood 5 out of 5 Synopsis Once upon a time Ella had wished for more than her life as a lowly maid. Now forced to work hard under the unforgiving, lecherous gaze of the man she once called stepfather, Ella’s only refuge is in the books she reads by candlelight, secreted away in the library she isn’t permitted to enter. One night, among her beloved books of far-off lands, Ella’s wishes are answered. At the stroke of midnight, a fairy godmother makes her an offer that will change her life: seven wishes, hers to make as she pleases. But each wish comes at a price and Ella must to decide whether it’s one she’s willing to pay it. A smouldering, terrifying new spin on Cinderella – perfect for fans of Laura Purcell and Erin Morgenstern. Review As a lowly housemaid, Eleanor lives in fear of her employer, Mr Pembroke. One night, when her fears are at their greatest, a mysterious black-eyed woman comes to her aid. I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchan...