Publication Date: June 15, 2021
TW: Slavery, Whipping, Gun Violence, gore, death, substance abuse, child neglect

Every witch has a calling, a trial arranged by one of their long dead ancestors when they hit puberty that tests their worthiness. If successful, the ancestor will award the witch with a magical gift, if they fail, they lose their witch status forever.

Voya has waited a long time for her calling. She’s blown away when one of her more notorious ancestors sets out her trial. She has 30 days to kill her first love, except Voya hasn’t experienced her first love yet. What follows is a story of family, love, loyalty and hardship.

Firstly, thank you for including content warnings at the beginning of the story. I also want to shout out the author for writing such wonderful, loyal, messy and diverse characters. Voya has entered my list of favourite female characters in literature.

I’ve never read a book that takes place in Toronto nor did I ever realize how much I craved a fantasy story to take place where I’m from. While this story takes place well into the future, Liselle’s inclusion of future Toronto as almost a character itself in the story was really neat. From the inclusion of the TTC arrival jingle, to famous landmarks and our unabashed multiculturalism, it was so interesting to see how years into the future the best of Toronto still shines.

As for the plot, it was a bit of a slow start in terms of the story. There was a lot of worldbuilding thrown at the reader all at once. I do appreciate when authors flesh out the world before they introduce the stakes in the plot. However, the story didn’t really pick up until about 20% in. It was bogged down by repetitive details about the same concept.

The premise of the story was definitely what intrigued me about this novel and it continued to keep me interested throughout the book. I’m normally the type of reader that guesses how the story is going to turn out long before the ending but this was not the case in this book.

I’ll be keeping my eye out for the next book in the series. I’m excited to see where the story goes and what happens to a number of characters.

Thank you to #NetGalley and @SimonandSchusterCanada for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Feel free to send any future books my way…. but actually.