Although I had heard of this author I hadn't read any of her previous books, and I don't think it was necessary to have read the Elder Race series in order to read this book, but maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I had. I didn't love American Witch. I felt that it moved too slowly, with too much internal dialogue, and without any real surprises. The "romance" was more insta lust than anything else. And finally I just never warmed up to any of the characters except Sarah. Overall it's not that I hated it, just that I wasn't very invested or interested. 2.5 Stars.

I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Molly Sullivan has spent years putting up with her husband's condescension and repeated infidelity, but finding a pair of lacy purple panties in their bed is the last straw. Unfortunately for all parties involved, her discovery coincides with her unexpected magical awakening, and an entire room is present to see her power destroy a vase. Witness to her awakening is Josiah Mason, a district attorney that works with Molly's husband, and leader to a secret coven of witches. Josiah is initially disturbed to find a newly awoken witch, anticipating her presence will ruin his coven's long awaited quest for vengeance. But when Molly comes across some damning evidence against her soon-to-be-ex-husband and his boss, Josiah soon realizes he can use her instead, and the two find themselves working together.

Having read a number of novels from Harrison's Elder Races and Moonshadow series, I was incredibly psyched to find out she was releasing the first in a brand new paranormal trilogy. I love how Harrison creates female protagonists who are more than just physically strong, but who are also courageous, supportive, intelligent, and often kind. Despite their many virtues, however, her characters are still flawed and realistic. Molly Sullivan is no different. I totally loved her character, and truly feel she was the very best part of this novel.

Another aspect of the story that kept me intrigued was the mystery. While definitely still a paranormal romance, I liked how much of an emphasis the author put on the suspense and action parts in this installment. At first I was disappointed to find this series was also set in the Elder Races universe, as I wanted something new. However, with these aspects to the story, American Witch felt familiar, but new and fresh enough to not feel like a copy of her prior series.

Unfortunately, I never really warmed up to Josiah's character. Toward the beginning, he comes across as kind of smarmy and manipulative. While, yes, after a while he DOES become somewhat more tolerable, I never found myself liking him, and I couldn't find it in me to like him and Molly together. While most of this really was on me, it really took away from my personal reading experience. I definitely feel others could eventually like him, and would still recommend this novel to fans of Harrison's works.

Overall, American Witch was a well-written novel with a great protagonist, and I would definitely recommend this novel to current fans of Harrison's works, as well as anyone looking for a new paranormal romance series!

3.5/5

Molly has been married to Austin for 20 years. She finds evidence of an affair on the night of a corporate party arranged for her husbands boss. Molly has had enough and confronts Austin at the party with unexpected rage and her developing Witch powers emerge. The new DA Josiah Mason is a powerful Witch and his first contacts with Molly who is trying to show independence does not go well.
The development of Molly and Josiah’s relationship (with threats all around from old enemies) takes a large leap through the latter part of the book. It takes most of the book before you begin to engage with these main characters. This book sets you up for a greater development of many of the characters in future stories.
I was given an ARC of this book by Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Molly Sullivan has been an ideal wife, except perhaps in the sex department as evidenced by the poorly hidden purple panties she finds in her marital bed. This is not an ideal situation but the timing couldn't be worse since Molly is in the midst of preparing to host a party for the managing partners of her husband's law firm. As Molly pulls the panties and stuffs them in her husband's martini glass, asks for a divorce and storms out leaving a roomful of stunned guests behind, I could already feel the pulse pounding start of a book I wouldn't be able to put down.

On her way out Molly manages to grab the contents of the safe certainly not realizing the explosive potential of the contents that she is unexpectedly gifted with. At the same time as her well ordered life is failing apart, Molly finds out that she's am emerging witch, a very powerful one at that. The new District Attorney whom she briefly met at the ill fated party and contacts regarding the provocative nature of some of the contents has his own secrets to hide that definitely do not need a raw and powerful witch sending out beams of power attracting attention.
In addition to all that power is the explosive chemistry that takes down the well disciplined Josiah and results in a night with unexpected consequences. Molly and Josiah struggle to find an answer to the demands and commitments that Josiah has with Molly's need to harness her powers and find herself. Josiah has lived a long life thirsting for revenge and it's so close that he can taste it but is it worth a relationship and a life? Molly finally knows what she needs and wants and will not compromise. Read the book to find out how this tangle sorts itself out.
Are some things improbable? of course but this is a story, a paranormal one at that so if you can look beyond that this is a fantastic story that will keep you reading way too late in the night and thirsting for more when it's all done.

3.5 Stars

This is a weird 3.5 stars review because I loved the heroine and the writing style so much. I really did. I wanted to give them 10 stars. I even found the hero intriguing. The story was so engrossing. If you're a Thea Harrison fan, this book is guaranteed to be a good read. I think Molly might actually be my favorite Elder Races heroine to date. But in the end, I couldn't justify giving it 4 or 4.5 stars for the following reasons:

1) I was really uncomfortable with how the word "holocaust" was used (twice within the same scene). More on this below.

2) Midway through the book, a plot point emerged and (through no fault of the book) is just a plot point that I personally dislike. I'll discuss this later under spoiler tags.

3) Even though I liked the main couple together, I was dissatisfied by how their romantic arc ended (it was happily, that isn't my complaint). Again, this is extremely spoilery so I'll discuss under spoiler tags.

THE PREMISE

Molly Sullivan's dirtbag of a husband is cheating on her. And she finds out by discovering another woman's panties on their bed. Filled with rage, she storms into their dinner party and causes such a scene that I wanted to stand up and cheer. She destroys her husband's reputation in front of all his colleagues, packs up the essential items (including the financial documents), and leaves the house. Oh, and she manages to shatter a vase across the room without touching it. It's unclear what exactly is happening to her, but her latent magic is awakening and her power is infinite.

“You broke my heart the first time you cheated on me,” she told him. “Broke it into a million pieces. I was only twenty-one and a junior in college. You were twenty-two and had just graduated, and we’d only been together for a year. But you were so sorry, and oh Lord, my mother was so damn insistent. So I stayed and gave you another chance.” She turned to Russell and the powerful-looking stranger who stood beside him. “He can be persuasive, can’t he?”

One of the men at the dinner party is the newly-elected District Attorney. Josiah Mason is nothing like he appears and has secrets of his own. He's a witch and recognizes Molly for exactly what she is - an incredibly powerful witch with immense power. Josiah's primary goal in life is to kill the unnamed powerful witch in Atlanta. He's been waiting for decades for this opportunity, and has been plotting out the logistics with members of his coven, who also despise the unnamed villain and are committed to their destruction. Molly is a sore distraction for Josiah - he has to teach her to control her burgeoning powers and also keep her out of danger. It turns out that Molly's husband has ties to Josiah's nemesis and that Molly's decision to divorce her husband has put her in imminent danger.

No amount of words can fully convey how much I love Molly. She's so strong and I wanted to cry at all the pain and misery thrown at her. She always puts herself first: regardless of this strange attraction to this dangerous man, she doesn't put up with his arrogant-asshole act and tells him off at every opportunity.

"A younger, softer Molly might have listened. She would have been eager to please and anxious to smooth things over. But she wasn’t that younger, softer Molly anymore. She felt no need to contort herself into another shape just to fit other people’s desires or expectations."

This might not be a popular opinion, but the romantic arc felt secondary to Molly's journey to find herself. Don't get me wrong - Josiah is there a lot and we see his POV equally. But this book is about Molly learning how to deal with her powers and to make herself into a new woman after her husband's betrayal.

So, there is obviously a lot I loved about the book and I couldn't put it down for the four hours that I was reading it. But there were also some negatives, which I'll discuss now.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE

1) I was really uncomfortable with how the word "holocaust" was used (twice within the same scene).

Okay, I *know* that the word holocaust has definitions and contexts that aren't related to the 20th century genocide. I know this. But the word has reached a certain stature in our society - it has a *very specific* meaning to most people and that meaning is almost always related to the genocide of Jews during World War II. So it feels incredibly jarring to see the word used *twice* in the same scene.

“She had called so much Power... [redacted]... that she lost control. She was a holocaust, and she didn't care.”

And pages later:

“They were all fuel for the holocaust of fury that drove him now.”

The context for this scene is a large magical battle. In the first quote, Molly has lost control and is using the brunt of her power to defeat the bad guys. In the second quote, Josiah is thinking about all the things that motivated him: the years of waiting, planning, and thinking. This is the fuel for the "holocaust of fury."

I felt so intensely uncomfortable and jarred by the usage. First, it took me out of the text because I immediately remembered the 20th century genocide. Second, it feels like an insult (unintentional, but an insult nonetheless) toward the actual genocide. The usage in question has nothing to do with genocide. It's about power fueling both individuals: magical power in Molly's case and rage/motivation in Josiah's case.

According to Merriam-Webster, the word holocaust has several definitions: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/holocaust

1. a sacrifice (see SACRIFICE entry 1 sense 2) consumed by fire

2. a thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life especially through fire

3a. usually the Holocaust : the mass slaughter of European civilians and especially Jews by the Nazis during World War II

3b. a mass slaughter of people, especially : GENOCIDE

I suppose the first passage makes sense. Molly is the holocaust, implying that she's so out of control and will cause a destruction. The second passage similarly implies that Josiah's fury is so vast that he's going to cause a large destruction and commit violence soon.

It's possible that I'm being too sensitive, but this bothered me so much that I actually stopped reading, backtracked, and reread the passage to make sure I was understanding correctly. It's a magical battle with the good guys against the bad guys. The good guys win, mostly because of Molly's immense power. This destruction, however brutal, is not a genocide of any kind.

I guess I can't find a justification to use this particular word when there are *so many* other words that can be used instead. It's not that "holocaust" is the only word in the English language that can express these sentiments. Like I said, I was only mildly jarred by the scene. But I can only imagine how harmful and painful this scene might feel to someone else. To me, that's a good enough reason to avoid the usage of "holocaust" in non-genocide contexts entirely.

The next two reasons why I disliked the book are *extremely* spoilery and spoil the entire book. Seriously, don't read the spoiler tags if you don't want to know what happens at the end.

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2) Midway through the book, a plot point emerged and (through no fault of the book) is just a plot point that I personally dislike.

Molly and Josiah are pretty conscious about safe sex and birth control. She's on the pill and they wear a condom when they first have sex (they explicitly talk about this before their first time). The alarm bells in my head sounded off when the condom broke. But it's all right, they reassure each other, Molly's on the pill! That didn't turn off my feeling of dread. And I was right - Molly later remembers that on a previous day, she forgets the pill (this is due to completely valid and stressful reasons - someone was trying to kill her!). At this point, I was 100% sure Molly was pregnant even if she wasn't sure. And sure enough, one pregnancy test later with a positive sign, she's knocked up.

It's not the book's fault that I was actively begging for her not to be pregnant. It's not my favorite plot line when a heroine is pregnant for most of the book (she finds out at around 60%). The book took a turn into something I wasn't expecting, and that's fine. I'm sure most readers don't have a problem with this trope, so it's very much a "it's me, not the book" thing.

That being said: despite my initial fears, I f'ing loved how Molly decided that she and her baby are far more important than Josiah. She basically says, "Look, I don't want you in my life because you're driven by revenge and violence. And that's not healthy for me and my baby, so you need to stay out of my life." And then she goes to the west coast, finds a new teacher/mother-figure, and becomes a part of a loving coven and community. I loved this so much. Which brings me to my next point.

3) Even though I liked the main couple together, I was dissatisfied by how their romantic arc ended (it was happily, that isn't my complaint).

I really like the idea of Josiah and Molly as a couple. My problem is that they're separated for so long in the second half of the book (Molly is in California and finding her place in her new community). They still communicate, and there's a lot of angst/love on both sides. They reunite in the end to fight the villain, he calls off his revenge quest, moves to California with her, and they all live happily ever after. The last chapter was so rushed. It sped through their tentative steps into a new relationship: their first "dates" as a real couple, doctor visits to see the ultrasound, Josiah becoming an integral part of the new coven, marriage proposal, wedding, and the baby's birth.

I felt cheated. I wanted to see all of this in greater detail: Josiah in the beginning of the chapter (right before he moves to California, when he's still facing the aftershocks of the battle) is completely different than the Josiah at the end of the chapter (a doting father and husband with a new found family). Some of my favorite parts of the book are when Molly is in California without Josiah. She's there for fourteen weeks before she reunites with Josiah and the book ends. It just felt... unfinished, somehow. Like there was more story to tell in between the last battle and the baby being born. I wanted to watch their relationship deepen and grow stronger post-battle.

Despite my qualms, I still really enjoyed this book. I can't recommend this without reservations, but it's definitely worth checking out.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review and will cross-post this review on Amazon on release day.

Four and a half stars, I knocked one off because I didn't want it to end.

Molly Sullivan is a normal housewife, married to a lawyer, used to entertaining her husband's colleagues and clients. Until one day she finds another woman's panties in the marital bed, on the night they are hosting a big reception for her husband's clients. Angered beyond belief Molly experiences some strange phenomenon and creates a massive scene in front of her husband's senior partner and the new District Attorney. A woman scorned she may be, but Molly is smart enough to empty the family safe when she leaves, even if she doesn't remember to bring both her left and right shoes or toothpaste!

Josiah Mason, the new District Attorney, isn't all that he seems, in fact he is a powerful witch and he is not best pleased to find that his plans for revenge are jeopardised by the emergence of a new, very powerful witch in the area. But his attempts to coerce Molly into joining forces fall very flat until Molly discovers secret papers from the family safe which put her life in danger - who else can she turn to but the District Attorney who also happens to be a witch.

I feel like this is a new genre, a hybrid of a contemporary romance and your more traditional paranormal romance but I can't put my finger on why. Maybe because, although there is a lot of magic and Molly learning her craft, the novel is firmly focused on the relationship between Molly and Josiah.

Anyway, I loved it. Authors, if you want to know what a strong woman looks and sounds like, look no further than Molly Sullivan. She was assertive, she didn't take any of Josiah's macho posturing or throwing around orders, but she also wasn't one of those heroines who puts themselves in danger. She was smart, funny, sassy, thoughtful and very powerful. I cheered her on several times when I was reading this novel, when Josiah tried to get her to stay away from danger, when he told her what to do, when he tried to make decisions for her and she slapped him down each and every time with wit and logic.

I just cannot wait for the next book in the trilogy - will it follow Molly and Josiah or will it focus on another member of the coven? I just don't know.

Warning, this isn't a cliffhanger per se but there is definitely a 'to be continued ...' with the overarching plot.

I received a free copy of this book from the author via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Molly Sullivan has been married for 20 years, the perfect wife to her lawyer husband Austin, when she discovers he has cheated on her - in their own bed. Enraged she confronts him during a party they are hosting and she leaves the house with the contents of their safe.

The last months Molly has been experiencing strange occurrences and she is shocked when she is told by District Attorney Josiah Mason she is a powerful witch, just like him and that she needs guidance to harness her powers. All Molly wants is to divorce Austin and she is very opposed to Josiah manipulating her. She finds leverage against Austin in the papers from the safe but after filing for divorce it becomes clear he has been engaging in dangerous matters and with dangerous people.

The only book I have read by Thea Harrison is the first book of the Elder Races, but this one stands completely on its own. I must admit I never really warmed to Molly at all. At first she comes across as a trophy wife scorned, who wants to just gather her assets. That does change, but still I couldn't relate to her at all.

The relationship between Molly and Josiah is a bit too insta for me (or is it lust?) and Molly keeps it very business-like. There was (a lot) more going on in the story than just Molly gaining her powers and forging a new life for herself. It is the first in a new series, so I assume the story will continue with maybe other characters we have met in this book.

Overall it rates between 3,5 and 4 stars for me. The writing is excellent, but it is lacking in the romance area for me. Of course that opinion is just my own and I am sure fans of the Elder Races series will be very happy with this addition to the booklist. The Elder Races are mentioned in the story, but have no storyline. Overall it is more like romantic (fantasy) suspense than a romance novel.

I’ve read lots of Thea Harrison’s books before this and was excited to see this one offered for review on Netgalley. And I wasn’t disappointed! It’s the first in a new series, American Witch, which I’m assuming is a trilogy, like her Moonshadow series. Certainly in this novel while the main couple Molly and Julian resolve their relationship and Molly’s personal situation (and powers) resolve, there are clearly plenty of loose ends to continue into the next book in the series.

I enjoyed Molly. She was practical, able to stand up for herself, worked hard on her new powers and did not put herself pointlessly into danger only to be rescued by the hero. Nor was she afraid to call Julian out with he treats her poorly. Interestingly, although her life changes because she comes into her powers as a witch, I don’t think she as a person changed much over the course of the book. This isn’t a complaint, in fact I found it made her all the more an interesting character. I think she started out as a practical, level headed woman and was able to apply those same characteristics to dealing with her cheating husband as she later does to her developing powers and relationship with Julian. He, on the other hand, did change over the course of the book and for the better. I wasn’t at all sure I liked him to start with. But when Molly forced him to look at himself and he didn’t like what he saw, he worked on that and was prepared to change where he was heading.

I highly recommend this book and will be looking out for the next in the series!

I will post this review on amazon.co.uk once this book is published and reviews can be left.