Persephone is an orphan-she's been shuttled between foster homes and now as an adult she goes between jobs. She's unable to make any real connections because when she looks in someone's eyes they do wildly crazy things. She meets Hyacinth and feels an instant bond. Hyacinth invites her to her little cottage on a beautiful island. Here Persephone will finally have a family and find out why she seems to have unusual powers. The writing is wonderful-full of lyrical imagery and great female relationships. Unfortunately, the world-building and magic kind of lost me. I ended up with the general gist of what happened but I had a hard time following what Persephone was learning about -who she was and what she needed to do to save the island.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in return for my honest review.

Although I really wanted to love this book - hello gorgeous cover!! - I just could not get in to it. It was a DNF for me around 20%.

The Orphan Witch by Paige Crutcher
This is the first book I have read by Paige Crutcher and I give it 3 1/2 stars. It was a little slow in some places but it is an O.K. read.
Reasons I enjoyed this book:
Original Unpredictable Whimsical Entertaining Happily Ever After

I can't wait for this one to get released. Full review to be available closer to publication dates.

I'd like to thank the publisher, St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

A different kind of read…
I picked this book to read based on the synopsis of the story - “A deeper magic. A stronger curse. A family lost...and found.” Was I in for a surprise! For me, I had a hard time figuring out where the story was headed at the beginning; it felt disjointed. The main character, Persephone May, has nothing but trouble and a big part of the first few chapters tells the reader what’s been happening. After this beginning, I finally found that the story begins to make sense, not completely, but I could begin to follow what was happening. There are a lot of characters appearing in this book, and the timeline for Persephone jumps around. After the halfway point the entire story picks up, and the reader is now vested in the story, and will want to read until the end. Don’t expect a love story here, for the most part it centers on magic, and family. The book is well written, with few to no grammatical errors. The story will hold your attention and will finish with an unexpected conclusion. I took one star off for the beginning chapters being confusing to me, but The Orphan Witch is an interesting read.

Answers. Family. Home.

Those three words are the perfect summary of this enchanting book. Living her life being shuffled through the foster care system after being abandoned - Persephone May has never had a true sense of family or home her whole life. Strange things seem to happen when she's around, the weather inexplicably changes, inanimate objects will randomly take flight, and perhaps most disturbing of all - extended eye contact wills the other individual to act very strangely. Yet again, she is ready for a new city and right as she's picking where to go, someone from her past, really her only friend, reaches out. She's always promised to visit her, so why not now? The timing couldn’t be better. However, when she arrives to the island that her friend lives on, things aren't as they seem. This island may in fact hold all the answers she's been waiting for.

What a lovely story Paige Crutcher has written. There's beautiful scenery, characters you connect with and care about, sharp humor, and most of all, magic that feels real and believable. What I think I enjoyed the most is her excellent storytelling and world building. The way she laid out the happenings in Persephone's life, and wove it into the happenings and history of Wile Isle was really impressive. There were great surprises along the way but nothing that felt completely random or anything that took me out of the story. After this seriously impressive debut, I cannot wait to see what Ms. Crutcher comes up with next.

This was not quite what I expected. I was excited by the blurb but I could not connect with the characters and the story just did not hold my attention.

Full of magic and suspense this enchanting novel is one to savor . Persephone May is our protagonist and has lived alone most of her life . Living in different places most of her life .One day she meets someone who changes her life and goes to idyllic town to live with king lost relatives . But there is more to what the eye can see. I loved this book and the characters in it. Don’t miss this one !

A lost witch, an island with a curse, and a librarian in a separate world. Persephone May has been alone her entire life, and everyone she’s ever loved or even looked in the eye has harmed themselves... after one particularly catastrophic and public display of magic, Persephone runs off to Wile Isle, where an online friend has offered her a place to stay... but that person may not be who she thought they were. Persephone has always had strange things happen around her, from the weather changing, to inanimate objects flying, to people who make eye contact with her either jumping out building windows or walking into traffic. She has learned never to get attached, to never show herself to anyone, and to be alone. Yet after arriving to Wile Isle she is suddenly opened up to cousins she has never known about, magical gifts she must learn to control, and finding that she might be at the center of a family long curse. To top it off she finds herself constantly walking into a mysterious library run by a handsome mysterious librarian who she just feels an instant attraction to. Soon Persephone must uncover the true secrets of her family and the 100 year old curse and even older family feud in order to save her new family and home... but is she willing to make the ultimate sacrifice? This was a magical and wonderful story. I definitely adored the Hades/Persephone elements between Persephone and Dorian. I loved the growing chemistry and the whole magical family history mixed in with the island magic. At the end of the day this is a story about a lonely girl who finds a family, who finds love, and who accepts the magic in her. I would highly recommend it!

*Thanks Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

Persephone was born with her future already planned out, she had to figure out how to break a hundred year old curse without destroying the island and killing her family. Like a puzzle she had to figure out the clues left by her ancestors to break the curse. Did she or didn't she? Read and find out.

I really wanted to like this book, but nothing about it captured my attention.
I really enjoy reading about witches and magic, so I thought this book was an immediate match for me.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.

Raised in foster care, Persephone May has spent most of her thirty years being shuffled from place to place even after leaving the system. She realizes that something is very different her and strange things always seem to happen when Persephone looks someone directly in the eye. After another such incident where she causes near harm to people she cares about, Persephone decides it is time to hurriedly leave once more. Bereft of friends or family, one person whom she stayed in touch with offers Persephone a chance at something new on an island of the Carolina coast.

Persephone immediately realizes that Wile Island is no normal tourist destination. She discovers answers to question that plagued her whole life: who am I, why was I abandoned? The women she stays with, Hyacinth and Moira have much of the knowledge Persephone has been yearning for and plan to teach her about her heritage. As Persephone learns to access, control and use her magic, she encounters strange worlds in and out of time meeting a man there who calls to her heart which is also a new experience. With a hundred old curse needing to be broken, family feuds, and battles between good and evil, Persephone has little time to figure out how to unravel everything and save those she loves from a fate worse than death.

This is a tale mostly about the sisterhood of witch families past and present who inhabit Wile Island. Men appear to have little value, with one exception, other than to donate their DNA for the cause and then be sent on their way. With a lot of complex magic and spell making, chapters shifting back and forth between then and now, the romance element for Persephone gets pushed to the background making this very much more a fantasy story although the synopsis might lead a reader to believe otherwise.

I have to say I’ve never read a book quite like this. The Orphan Witch was a unique story filled with magic, love, powerful women, family and witchy family feuds, and quest to save a cursed island. The story was intriguing albeit hard to follow at times, but it just wasn’t for me. It took awhile for me to get invested in the plot because it starts slow. When the book finally picks up so much is happening at once I wasn’t sure I was even following all of it because the world is very complex and the plot lacked cohesion. However, I personally thought the addition of the Library of the Lost was the best part of the book, it was unexpected and different and I found the concept really interesting.

The character building and story line was on par and the beginning of the book drew me in. The ending was heart felt with both happy and sad. The only criticism I would give is that, the story really slowed down in the middle. It's because of this that I didn't devour this book in a day as my usual practice. It takes getting through some heavy deceleration in a rather large portion of the story. None the less, this plot had a lot going for it with great character building, depth and originality. Overall, I was moderately pleased.

A strong story with an intriguing premise, but ultimately this book wasn't a stylistic match with my tastes.

Orphan Witch does very much have a Alice Hoffman vibe--dreamy setting with a cool cast of witchy bad asses. I liked the characters and thought the magical scenes were well done. I also enjoyed learning with Persephone as she uncovers the breadth of her powers. Time flows weirdly in this story (but maybe that's the point?)

However, personally I just didn't dig the style of writing of this book. It was a little over-evocative for my taste. For example, each time Persephone encounters her hottie love interest there is repeated description of his eye color. There's just a lot of descriptive prose in general--how things smelled, how they tasted, how they felt to the touch, plus endless sensations that creep up someone's spine. While I know some people love that kind of writing and may think it enhanced the witchy vibe, for me it felt a little distracting and made the book lull a bit.

Overall, a fine book. Probably a 5 star for some people. Just OK for me.

I received an ARC of this book courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I picked this up because I thought it would be similar to Sarah Addison Allen and Practical Magic, which I took to mean that it would be a somewhat whimsical story with magical realism.

I didn't quite get that here. I wanted to like this, but it felt like something was missing. It couldn't quite keep my interest, and I never got to a point where I was invested in the story or the characters. I did find the bits about the library interesting, but those were just a small aspect of the plot.

Readers who like slower, more serious fantasy stories that take place in modern times may like this, but unfortunately it wasn't for me.

This started out well but sadly I had to break up with the book. I gave it my hardest try and also tried picking it back up where I left off (just over 50%) after a few days. This is a case of the “it’s not you, Book, it’s me.”

I still wanted to leave a review to warn others - if you’re reading this solely because you’re a fan of Sarah Addison Allen you will be disappointed.

Here’s why I was the problem. I don’t typically enjoy sci-fi. I love magical realism. When it is more subtlety, warmly, woven into real life. I was too excited when I saw SAA mentioned and took a chance.

This books seems atmospheric and well written (what I read) and I hope many others love it!

This one just wasn't for me. Too much telling rather than letting me discover. I struggled through the first 3 chapters and then, from there, just never connected. I found the magic intriguing but I just genuinely stopped caring enough to even try to understand it. I wish I'd loved this more.

<i>A huge thank you to the author and St. Martin's Griffin for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.</i>

Thank you. Netgalley for my copy of The Orphan Witch. I was extremely excited to read this becuase I love any witchy reads. This story started off very strong but the more I got into it the more confusing and complicated the story got. I started to lose interest by the halfway point and couldn't get back into it.

This book started off so strong, I was hooked from the first. However the more the book went on the more busy it got and I found myself getting lost and having to reread to ensure I understood.

In the end I didn’t love it as much as I first had hoped.