SANCTUARY has been high on my must-read list from the moment I heard of it. I’ve been no-so-patiently waiting for its US release and I’m so thrilled that day has finally come. I’m such a huge, huge fan of Vic James’ Dark Gifts trilogy, and I can now happily say I’m also a huge fan of her work as V.V. James.

SANCTUARY is a thrilling mystery that tears apart the lives of 4 close friends and threatens the security and safety (and sanity) of an entire town. But most interestingly, this book is also a mirror to today’s political climate and the overwhelming feeling of panic and how quickly things (and people) spiral out of control due to rumors and fear. There’s a phrase that’s overused by *someone* we all know, and I will borrow it now — this book is a modern day witch hunt, though quite literally because at the center of all of this chaos is a witch who’s on the brink of persecution due to mass hysteria and people believing what they’re told instead of using rational thinking.

There was so much to like in this book, from the well-crafted mystery and its many twists and turns, to the dimensional characters, to the super interesting world that James created. She took a wealthy coastal town — one that could easily be any wealthy town in New England, and infused it with magic and gave it that true Salem feel. James did a phenomenal job crafting this mystery until I was certain everyone in the entire town had a hand in it and was guilty as sin. Every single character was so well-developed, even the minor ones, and James made sure to be inclusive not just with race, but also with sexuality and gender.

All told, SANCTUARY is a fantastic witchy mystery that I highly recommend. It’s definitely a book that will appeal to mystery and fantasy fans alike, and certainly one that’ll give you some 1692 Salem vibes.

I’ve been on a thriller/mystery kick lately, so I was definitely intrigued by this small-town murder mystery that also has *witches*.

But this…honestly didn’t work for me. First of all, there were way too many alternating POVs. This isn’t necessarily a problem itself, but I struggled to make sense of who I was reading from and would often forget mid-chapter; the characters’ voices blurred together. Perhaps as a result, I found that I didn’t care much about the characters.

Also, while the whole witch element was partially why I requested this book, I found the mix of supernatural with the real world really odd. It didn’t feel integrated seamlessly into the world-building, so the mention of witches every time just pulled me straight out of the story.

Unfortunately, a pass from me.

4.5ish stars, rounded up. This contemporary witchy tale was so compelling. Every time it seemed like things were going to resolve and the stakes couldn't be higher, the author nudged the story a little further. In this slightly alternate world magic is real; recognized and regulated by the government, but otherwise it's the contemporary world as we know it, with a similar political environment making the stakes of witchcraft crimes high. It's so twisty and compelling, excellent characters, and a must for spooky season reading.

Wow what an awesome start for this debut author. It has it all. It's suspenseful and edgy with a touch of something else. Absolutely check it out. Happy reading!

Publication Date: 9/11/20

Think Big Little Lies with a witchy twist, that’s Sanctuary!! I loved it!!

Sanctuary is about a town in Connecticut shocked by the tragic death of their most popular high school football player. How did he die? How did he break his neck? Some say he was killed by witchcraft….could that be possible? Detective Maggie Knight must solve this mystery.

The book has a lot of suspense and includes enough twist and turns to keep you turning the page. The character building is what makes this book so wonderful. You become very involved with each character and due to the description writing of V. V. James, you feel like you know and understand what the characters are thinking.

I don’t usually read stories about witches and magic because I don’t really understand reading something that can’t be real. I guess I am not much of a fantasy/paranormal kind of gal, but this book is written in a way that makes it feel believable and I believe every type of reader would enjoy the story.

I was glad I gave this book a chance and would recommend it to anyone that likes mysteries with some witchiness thrown in!!

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for an ARC of this book in exchange for my review.

Thank you, Sourcebooks Landmark, and NetGalley for my e-arc

The story started with mom’s celebrating the children’s achievements only to get a call afterward that one of the teenagers, Dan Whitman died, and a fire took place from the villa where the teenage party was going on. The town of Sanctuary has a long history of having witches living amongst them; however, in the present day, there is only one registered witch known to everyone who has provided the whole town help when needed that witch is Sarah. Sarah and her daughter Harper were put in the spotlight when Dan’s death was called murder rather than an accident, and Abigail, Dan’s mom, and a friend of Sarah turned against Sarah and did everything to ensure she has the town backing her up. Then there’s Maggie, the detective who was sent out to make a report and investigate what happened that night in the party and was stunned to know that there was a magic involvement. Things got more intense when people suddenly started getting sick, especially Jake, who happens to be the Chief’s son.

✔Modern-day witches, witchcraft, and covens
✔The parent-child relationship, protective friends, and friends, turned enemies
✔Murder, rape, and unexplainable sickness
✔Multiple POVs, police investigation, and mysteries.

I am drawn to this book right from the start. I sympathize with Abigail’s emotion after losing her son but heavily despised her as the story progressed. The town of Sanctuary is small where everyone knows everyone but also an example of that whole saying, “It doesn’t matter how many times you helped or been there to people, they will turn against you over one crazy mistake”. This town is crazy, I mean seriously, let us blame the witch for something you have chosen to do and asked her help with. The story defines the value of friendship and knowing who your friends are. It also tackles what mothers can do to protect and fight for their children—too many emotions in one book. The witchcraft is fascinating. I love the whole crisis and mystic combination, making it a riveting and puzzling read.

unpopular opinion alert!

pitched as big little lies meets practical magic with feminist witchy undertones, what could go wrong?
apparently, a lot. Sanctuary took elements of so many of my favourite things, from a murder mystery, to social commentary to a twisty plot. The potential was definitely there for an amazing story, but unfortunately it fell flat for me.

second unpopular opinion: I don't love modern day witch stories. I tend to find them cheesy and jarring, for some reason it is difficult for me to turn of my analytic brain. However, that actually wasn't an issue for me in this one! The witches were incorporated in a nuanced way. It wasn't just our world + witches, but rather how our world would be if witches like these ones existed. I found it really interesting to see this author's take on the history, slurs and discrimination against witches that would be present. The fear of the different, and the persecution that would arise from it. The out-dated policies and legislation. Unfortunately, it felt entirely realistic.

"If there's one thing that works even better than anger, it's fear"

The writing style was by no means bad, but it wasn't good either. It felt bland and uninteresting- a stark contrast to the plot and world. It made things that could have felt exciting or magical instead feeling boring and lifeless. There were short chapters that made it easy to get through, but I didn't feel the pull to keep reading, or the need to pick it back up whenever I closed it.

The book only started getting interesting for me towards the end when we really get to see the witch hunt get going. It definitely felt reminiscent of the Salem witch trials, and it was alarming how history so easily repeated itself. I found the scenes with Abigail (that parallel surely couldn't be unintentional right?) and her fight for 'justice' to be some of the most compelling in the entire book.

I enjoyed the ending overall, but didn't love the final plot twist. I am not sure exactly what it was, but it left a strange taste in my mouth and was a bit anticlimactic. I can't full explain why I didn't love it, but it made the entire book almost feel redundant.

Overall, this definitely wasn't a bad book, but I was left disappointed after all of the glowing reviews and clear potential. I won't be left thinking about these characters or the mystery, and I didn't particularly love my experience reading it. However, take my review with a grain of salt because I am definitely in the minority.

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark for this ARC

Release Date: 7 September 2020

Sanctuary by V.V. James (She also writes as Vic James) was certainly engrossing. In a modern world that conforms in most ways to our own, the exception is that witches are an accepted part of the population--with laws and internal rules that guide their use of magic.

Description:

Sanctuary is the perfect town . . . to hide a secret.

When young Daniel Whitman is killed at a high-school party, the community is ripped apart. The death of Sanctuary's star quarterback seems to be a tragic accident, but everyone knows his ex-girlfriend Harper Fenn is the daughter of a witch--and she was there when he died.

VV James weaves a spellbinding tale of a town cracking into pieces and the devastating power of a mother's love. Was Daniel's death an accident, revenge--or something even more sinister?

As accusations fly, paranoia grips the town, culminating in a witch-hunt...and the town becomes no sanctuary at all.

I couldn't put it down, but now I'm having trouble deciding what I think about it. It was tense and alternating POVs gave different levels of suspense. There are several topics that are always current in the news. I liked Maggie, the detective whose role is to investigate Daniel's death.

I hated one character and as the plot moved on discovered another reason to hate her. Maybe it was all too reminiscent of people who are so vindictive, even when they secretly know something despicable about the person they "love." Which makes me question whether it is mother's love or love of a reputation, love of a self-idealization.

Maybe my problem is that although I liked the book, now--with the connections to paranoia and hatred in the news each day--I simply don't want to face it. It makes me sad and fearful and sometimes fiction makes it so much more personal.

Read in August; blog review scheduled for Sept. 8.

NetGalley/Sourcebooks
Mystery/Thriller. Sept. 8, 2020. Print length: 464 pages.

An interesting mystery with an interesting premise! Sarah Fenn is a witch. She's provided services to many of the upstanding citizens of Sanctuary, Connecticut and she knows many secrets. Now, though, the town is turning on her in the wake of the death of Daniel Whitman, a high school football player. How did Daniel break his neck? Well, that's the question Detective Maggie Knight must answer. She puts aside the accusations that Sarah's daughter Harper, who was at the party where Daniel fell, cast a spell on him. No spoilers from me but know the the mystery is almost less interesting than the way James explores the class divisions in the town as well as the mob mentality that emerges. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Good characters and a twist made this a good read.

A fast-paced, modern-day Crucible that had me anxious and racing towards the end to solve the crime.

Reading Sanctuary, I remembered how truly frustrated I was reading The Crucible in high school. I tend to get way too involved with a story when there's constant untruth and injustice, especially when rape allegations come into play. Which, of course, was exactly the point of this tale - bringing in one of America's oldest histories of violent discrimination and putting it in our cozy modern day. We see how truly terrifying the effects of mass hysteria can be.

Sanctuary reads as a mix of fantasy and crime novel, which was unique and intriguing for me as a reader. We follow a group of women who have raised their children alongside one another. Sarah Fenn is the licensed town witch with her own legal business providing aide to any citizen who chooses to come to her for sickness, inconveniences, annoyances or anything that therapy hasn't helped. Her close friends, Bridget, Abigail and Julia become her coven, as their non-magical love and companionship help to strengthen some of her larger spells. The book immediately jumps in to the night of a large high school party that their kids are attending. A fire breaks out immediately after Abigail's son, Daniel, is seen plummeting from the second story landing and falling to his death. The chapters are marked by the differing viewpoints of the officer in charge of the case, Sarah and Abigail, and what ensues from this tragedy is grief turned into fear turned into rage. A witch-hunt begins when Sarah's daughter, Harper (who has shown at 13 that she does not have the gift), is quickly accused by Daniel's best friend of using witchcraft to make Daniel fall

I enjoyed the premise of this book and all the feelings it got you riled up with, although I did personally find myself overly frustrated with the constant untruth. I also kept thinking about how much this book read like a movie - the cliffhanger chapters, the perspective changes - and then of course I realized the author is also a producer. My criticism of this book would be that I felt the supporting females - Julia and Bridget and even Abigail at times - weren't fleshed out quite enough to differentiate their voices from each other. I'm a sucker for strong, vivid characters and they didn't come to life for me or jump off the page because they all seemed to talk similarly without any strong quirks or defining characteristics. My favorite aspect by far, however, was the crime mystery. The author kept me guessing every time I thought I had it all figured out.

Recommend as a quick, fall-time read for lovers of crime, family drama and fantasy.

I found this book to be a fun read. It was filled with suspense as well as enough twists and turns to keep the reader turning pages. This is a book which I would recommend to others.

First of all, I often read the ending of a book to see whodunnit. So after reading a few chapters to assess the situation, I scrolled to the end of Sanctuary and read the last few pages. Tucking that information into the back of my mind, I read the rest of the book in order.

Without giving spoilers, it’s hard to share much about the book. But James blew me away.

If you like playing detective, you’ll have fun trying to figure out the mystery. I am amazed at how cleverly the author plants the clues in plain sight. If I hadn’t known the ending, I would never have guessed it.

At various times, characters stumble across good but inaccurate explanations for what’s happening, or right explanations with the wrong people, or variations of these. There are lots of these moments in this book. But which one is the right one? It’s not until the end of the story that everything comes together. James spins us deeper and deeper into the story until we’re like the folks of Sanctuary, unable to escape the book, even if we wanted to.

As the story goes on, the tension grows. Relationships change. Friendships are destroyed, or were these friendships at all? Or merely mutually beneficial relationships? Or even parasitic relationships, where one feeds off the other person’s secrets and fears?

There are dozens of possibilities, and as the book progresses, the author raises the stakes over and over, developing the conflicts, and people reveal their truest selves. Stripped of their veneer of politeness, they are all capable of anything.

Whenever it seems things can’t get worse, they do. And sometimes these twists and turns come from unexpected people and in unexpected–but not unrealistic–ways. There’s a lot of truth here about human nature and what we are capable of doing, especially in the name of love. Throughout the novel, the centuries-old specter of the hanging deaths of witches looms in the background. It’s painfully easy to see how a frenzied crowd might make this horror a reality once more.

Connecticut has one exception to its ban on the death penalty: Homicide by Unnatural Means. Witchcraft. If Harper is found guilty, she will be executed; the colonial-era law does not allow for a stay of execution or a repeal of the law. Yet everyone knows that Harper, the daughter of a witch, has no magical gifts. That doesn’t stop the accusations from flying . . .

At one point, a character defines magic as the “art of doing things the crooked way, not the straight.” If so, then James works magic with her book. Nothing is straight-forward, and she takes us on a very crooked path indeed.

Recommended for anyone who loves a well-written mystery!

Note: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review. All opinions are my own.

This review will be posted to my blog on September 8, 2020.

When Daniel Whitman, Sanctuary's star quarterback, is killed at a high school party, the police have to determine if it was a freak accident that caused his fall, or if Daniel's ex-girlfriend Harper Fenn performed witchcraft as some people claimed she did. Harper's mom Sarah is the only registered witch in the village. Harper was declared at age 13 to possess no magical ability, so there should be no way Harper could have done what people are claiming. What starts as a rumor, quickly becomes a full-on witch hunt, with the town determined to make Sarah and Harper pay for every bad thing that ever happened to them.
I could not put this book down. It grabbed my attention from the very first page, all the way to the surprise ending. Every time I got to the end of a chapter I had to keep reading, because I wanted to see where this would all lead. Even if you aren't a fan of books about things like magic and witches, if you enjoy a good suspense and mystery, then you would enjoy this. This is definitely a must-read. I look forward to reading more by this talented author.

When the town golden boy and football star dies tragically at a party, a witch and her coven mourn the loss together. Until the witch's daughter is accused of killing him by witchcraft and the whole town spirals into fear, mob mentality and persecution of the witch while one state investigator tries to get to the bottom of the story. Think Big LIttle Lies with witchcraft.

"A suspenseful debut that twists Big Little Lies with Practical Magic in a dark mystery of four women, a wicked secret - and an investigation that shakes their Connecticut town to the core.

Sanctuary is the perfect town...to hide a secret.

When young Daniel Whitman is killed at a high-school party, the community is ripped apart. The death of Sanctuary's star quarterback seems to be a tragic accident, but everyone knows his ex-girlfriend Harper Fenn is the daughter of a witch - and she was there when he died.

V.V. James weaves a spellbinding tale of a town cracking into pieces and the devastating power of a mother's love. Was Daniel's death an accident, revenge - or something even more sinister?

As accusations fly, paranoia grips the town, culminating in a witch-hunt...and the town becomes no sanctuary at all."

Yes, I was sold once Practical Magic was mentioned, everything else is icing on the cake!

A super-star quarterback dies.....and his girlfriend is a witch.

That's all I can say about this fabulous story. It's a premium cable channel show - Friday Night Lights + Big Little Lies with Witches.

PERFECT.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I really enjoyed the book! The characters were relatable and believable. The town was sweet and creepy. I was not super surprised by the plot twist at the end but definitely made me think twice about what I believed had happened. I rate this book a 4.2

I received an ARC through NetGalley from SOURCEBOOKS Landmark. This book was such a surprise for me, and I felt like I lived in the town of Sanctuary. In an alternate now where witches can be registered and practice, we visit the one-witch town of Sanctuary. The star high school football player is dead at a party and the non-magical teen daughter of the town’s witch is put to blame. How quickly can an entire town turn cold and heartless in the wake of accusations? Rather quick. Told from 3 perspectives: Sara the witch, Maggie the detective, and Abigail the mother of the deceased teen. Three fabulously drawn characters, protecting their children, looking for truth, and looking for camaraderie. I want there to be a sequel because I want to go back to the world that I lived in. Lots of twists and turns, with good secondary characters that were also well fleshed out. This story realistically portrayed how quickly opinions can turn about an individual or named group.

SANCTUARY is fantastic read. Think PRACTICAL MAGIC crossed with the tale of the monkey's paw. Scary and delicious at the same time. SANCTUARY imagines the present world, but with legalized witchcraft as a part of everyday life. Sara Fenn is the local witch in Sanctuary, CT. The description of her work makes her seem like a homeopath with a serious extra kick to her medicine (who could use that from time to time). But to her dismay, Sara's daughter Hannah inherited none of her powers. But at least Sara has her long time friends Abigail, Julia and Bridget to act as her coven when she needs extra energy to help with her work. But when Abigail's son Dan falls to his death at a port-graduation bash, and Hannah is accused of killing him through witchcraft, all hell breaks loose... Great characters, great writing - I thoroughly enjoyed every compelling page!

Sanctuary by V.V. James is one of the best thriller/mystery novels I have read in quite some time. A key element to this book's magic is in fact...magic. The role of witches in the story is well-developed and feels natural to the story. This is a new world rather than one where it's reality plus witches. It makes for a more enticing read that reminds you time and time again that things are a bit different in the novel than the world around us.

A key element to this book that I enjoyed is the development of each character's intentions, motives, and reasoning. Everyone in this book gets their due diligence, even when you despise them as a reader. It's a wonderful example of how James' character work and development is in a class of its own. Rather than developing the core characters central to the twists and turns of the narrative, everyone is in the mix here. Rightfully so, it makes for a much more interesting read.

Overall, Sanctuary's comparison to "Big Little Lies + Witches" is fair, but undercuts the quality of this novel. I enjoyed Big Little Lies, but I like the characters (good and bad, morally speaking) in this novel more. The witch element is a great little twist in an otherwise wonderful mystery novel. Highly recommend and would love to revisit in a year or so.