Teens at my library are always checking this book out. They love it! For me it was a 3-star read, but it does get a lot of circulation.

Really fun and kept me guessing. Great world building. Glad there's a sequel and I get to hang out with these characters again and see where their journeys lead.

I was personally a little too old for this, but I can see my library teens enjoying this witchy, sapphic read. I found the main character to be annoying, but I think that's just me.

I loved everything about this book! Sterling created a rich, fantastical world with a magic system I really liked. I loved the characters and how heart-pounding it was!

I loved this book a hundred times over! I can't wait to read more from this author and I hope to see more queer fantasy from her in the future!

This felt like something I would like, but it didn't grab me. I ended up not finishing this title. I really think that others will enjoy it though.

This had a lot of really great moments! There's some great representation here, and consent!! It started out fun and then took a turn that made it much darker than I expected (and that the cover lends itself too)..

shallow characters, but an interesting, entertaining plot. Dark turns and twists make this book a page-turner, although not so much so that you cannot enjoy the scenery.

I do not provide literary reviews but I create "fiction food" inspired by the book. I was given a Netgalley copy of the book by the publicist/author/ magazine publisher to create fiction food (photo + recipes) for use in marketing.

https://issuu.com/curiositales/docs/may_2019_issue_11_curiositales_maga_a26bfb57cac535
http://fictionfood.com/entries/ya-fiction/a-meal-from-these-witches-don-t-burn

This was the queer witchcraft story we deserve. The characters are complex and fun, and the stakes of the magic and family felt real. The mystery was perhaps underplayed, but teens will like it.

I have very mixed feelings about These Witches Don't Burn.

I wish there had been more background on the magic system. A lot of the rules that Hannah mentioned seem to be counter productive and it would have been nice to get more information about it.

The parents seemed super shady and were kind of horrible in regards to to some of the issues but were otherwise great and it didn't seem to jive. I wish they would have been a bit more consistently written.

This book better have had trigger warnings for the abusive relationship that was portrayed between Hannah and Veronica.

It was decently written and I wanted to know how it ended but there were too many things that didn't have enough detail or the background information was given too late and there were so, so many characters that just kept doing things that didn't make sense. I could see that with the teens but all the adults were making even more bad decisions left and right that I couldn't believe it.

This ended up being okay because of the high intensity of the ending but I will not be picking up any other books in this series.

Loved this modern take on the Salem witch trials! Fascinating development of the different types of witches, excellent tension throughout the story, and loved reading the f/f romance. A promising start to the new series.

First up in this final installment of this year’s Halloween Reading Roundup is These Witches Don’t Burn by Isabel Sterling. This YA novel mixes contemporary urban fantasy with a queer romance subplot that has a spin we’re not yet completely used to seeing in LGBTQ fiction. A trigger warning for fire applies to several sections of the book.

Hannah is a 17-year-old soon-to-be high school senior who lives in Salem, Massachusetts. She works in a witchcraft store that caters to the town’s many tourists, but she also happens to be a real Elemental witch who is learning to control the elements. Her ex-girlfriend, Veronica, is also an Elemental, and the two are part of the same intimate coven which is making their antagonistic break up even harder than it already would have been.

Also complicating her summer is the mounting evidence that someone is practicing dark magic in town. Hannah is convinced it’s the work of a dangerous Blood Witch but none of the adults in her coven seem to be taking her seriously and she can’t even talk it out with her non-magical best friend without having her magic stripped away for good. What she can talk about with her BFF, however, is the cute new girl she just met; but is Morgan really flirting with her, or was she just being influenced by the magical necklace Hannah was wearing?

As the darkness in town builds, both Hannah and Veronica find themselves at the epicenter of increasingly brutal attacks and under the watchful gaze of their coven leader and a new local detective. Is there really a Blood Witch in town, and who is behind the escalating violence?

I absolutely loved this book and devoured it in one day. Although the central mystery of who was behind the attacks was, in my opinion at least, very obvious from about a third of the way through the book, this actually added to the tension because I found myself yelling at Hannah to see what was right in front of her before it was too late! Although none of the characters here are the most original I’ve ever come across, they still gripped my attention from page one and kept me turning the page wanting to know what happened next.

I especially enjoyed the different take on LGBTQ romance found here. So many queer stories are focused on coming out narratives or the protagonist falling in love but rarely do we see the other end of these romances. These Witches Don’t Burn shows us the heartbreak, confusion, and conflicting emotions that come with a breakup but through a queer lens. There is also a small homophobia plot in the background here that made the story (unfortunately) feel more realistic, and I liked how this paid off by the end. There is a lot made here of the parallels between witches and the LGBTQ community in the persecution they have historically faced and the lengths many must still go to in order to stay safe, and this is handled in a sensitive and thought-provoking way.

These Witches Don’t Burn is the first in a series and the next book, This Coven Won’t Break was next on my list…

I liked the character dynamics, and I think teens particularly will appreciate the nuanced approach to gender and sexuality--there's explicitly bi witches, there's married lesbian witches, there's a trans witch, etc, and I loved that!

However the witch stuff fell a bit flat for me--the worldbuilding definitely felt like an afterthought to the character development, which can be OK but like........for my money you can almost never have too much witch stuff! And that lack made the witch stuff part of the mystery...underwhelming. Also--and perhaps this is just because of where I live--I felt like the book didn't use its Salem, MA setting to its fullest advantage. For the most part this could have taken place in any suburb.

Still, the characters and the romance were great, and readers who are less passionate about witch stuff than I am will enjoy it.

A great book for fans of all things witchy! The mystery keeps you guessing and the ending will leave you waiting for the sequel.

I enjoyed this title but at times I went back and forth due to the unrealistic moments. Overall, a fun read.

While I really enjoyed the premise-- a coven of real witches who lives in Salem-- I just could not get swept up in the story. I also really was excited for the LGBTQ characters, but they came off as pretty flat and over dramatic. I just couldn't care about the relationships, the threat of a new clan of witches coming to town, nor anyone we had been introduced to in the first 20% of the book.

It was a Do Not Finish for me.

An easy to read book that kept my interest throughout, I would recommend this book to anyone. Thanks for the opportunity.

A fun coming of age book with a gay female main character. It takes place in Salem Massachusetts which adds to the mystique. This is a great book that weaves a mystery in to issues that young adults are dealing with today.

LOVED this book—so, so atmospheric and already want to read it again. The relationships are super realistic and the writing is really unique!