This book seemed like it was made for me- dark, sapphic, witchy retelling of the Great Gatsby? Yes please!

Unfortunately, I ended up disappointed.

First, what I liked:
Our heroine’s character growth. It was nice to see Annie come into her own and finally stand up for what she wanted.
The general vibe. The 1920s dark witchy aesthetic is something I need more of in my life.
The complications of Annie and Bea’s friendship felt very real and developed over the course of the story.

Unfortunate I did not like:
The relationship between Annie and Emmeline felt very underdeveloped. They’re magically connected but I didn’t ever really feel the love between them beyond that.
The magic system. It wasn’t well enough explained and thus felt way too convenient at times. The fact that the magic involves lots of blood and gore doesn’t automatically make the price and weight of magic well defined. Characters talk over and over again about how bad and dangerous it is. Their reasons for continuing to use it didn’t feel equally fleshed out.
Emmeline also felt she was mostly defined by her trauma and magic and little else.

On the whole, it’s fine, just disappointing. I don’t think I could recommend it, but also wouldn’t warn folks to stay clear.

3.5 stars. A languorously unfolded plot and lush writing make this a beautiful, “Great Gatsby”-inspired novel of illicit magic and dark secrets.

It’s after the Great War, and Annie is on Crow Island, at her estranged father’s house to sort things out after his death. Next door are a trio of fashionable, attractive people, partying, and flouting the prohibition against the use of herbs, some of which can be used in magic, which is forbidden. Also in town is Bea, Annie’s longtime friend, now, strangely, married to a wealthy man.

Strains and violence appear soon in Bea’s marriage, while Annie becomes acquainted with her unusual neighbours, despite her father’s lawyer urging her away from them. What follows is Annie discovering more about magic and some of its dark practices than she ever anticipated, as well as beginning a wild and magical relationship with her neighbour Emmeline, a witch.

The story takes a long, languid time getting to the climax, with many secrets revealed amongst the characters, and Annie finding an adventurous, romantic, risk taker within herself. The prose is lovely, and if you don’t mind a slow-paced reveal of character and plot, this book will reward you with a darkly romantic story.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Redhook Books for this ARC in exchange for my review.

Found hard to get through the story because of its lack of developed characters. Liked the writing though which kept me going through the book.

4.5/5 Loved this book. Wish I saved it for the Fall time if I'm being honest. Thank you for an ARC, Net Galley! I can't wait to read what this author does next. Also, this would make a great TV show like the Magicians!

Thank you NetGalley, Redhook, and Francesca May for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review! This is a really well-written book that's similar to The Great Gatsby, but instead with sapphic witches. The best part of this book is definitely the atmosphere and the vibes that it gives off while reading. It really transports you into the world and makes you feel like you're a part of everything that's going on. In my opinion it was a little slow-paced, but I can understand why and I still enjoyed it. I also felt distanced from some of the characters at times, but this could just be a personal issue. I would rate it myself at about 3 stars, but I'm going to give it 4 instead because I think some people would definitely enjoy it a lot more than me.

This is definitely not what I expected or what I usually read however it was a nice switch up for me and I really enjoyed it.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!
(Spoiler-free)

Wild and Wicked Things was a fun but ultimately a little disappointing. I think being marketed at a romance really hurt it because the romance is pretty minimal, and almost feels like an afterthought. I was excited for a Great Gatsby retelling to have all the drama and queerness that the original missed out on, and it did, but it just didn't work for me. The writing built up certain scenes, but everything felt anti-climactic, just leading to the next scene.

All in all, it wasn't awful. It wasn't amazing, and I can see it being great for a select group of people but it doesn't commit enough to the retelling, nor to the queerness, to land for me.

I’m really not sure what it was about this book, but I just could not get into it. Very slow moving. No connection to the characters. Sadly, this one just didn’t do it for me.

I didn’t jive with this at all. Every time I think a fantasy is going to work for me, it really only does so in theory. The synopsis is intriguing as heck, and I always think I’ll vibe with witchy things, but it turns out what I’m looking for either doesn’t exist or I simply haven’t found it yet.

I simply wasn’t invested in the story or in the characters. Maybe the historical aspect of this threw me off too, but I think it really came down to wanting to feel more engaged in this than I did.

Thank you to NetGalley and Redhook Books for the ARC!

It started with an interesting story, but keep repeating it self and slow moving. Was well written, but wish there was more happening. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would.

This book took me 2 long weeks to finish. It moved rather slowly for me, but I did enjoy the witchiness. The characters were all interesting and the plot kept me wondering how it would all pan out. The prose was quite beautiful and poetic. Nonetheless, something kept me from loving this book. Might have been that it was so long and drawn out.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and author for an advanced copy of this book.

I loved this book. It kept me scrolling page after page and kept me awake during a long 12 hour shift. I loved the descriptions and details of the witches and the story telling of the characters and their magic. I would love to read a sequel or a prequel pertaining to the counsel and their involvement/role in the lives of the residents of the house Before, during and after Emmeline.

Whoa! What a ride. It was very fast-paced. The writing style kept me hooked and I didn't find myself losing any interest. I enjoyed getting to know each of the characters and how real the story felt. The author did a great job painting the setting, so it was easy for me to visualize the scene played out before me. I recommend giving this one a chance!

I wan yes to like this book but I just didn’t. The story was slow to pick up and I thought left out some details that would have been helpful to understanding the story. I managed to finish but it was a bit of a slog.

Charlotte’s Review:

Wild and Wicked Things achieves what I expected to be the impossible: it made me love something Great Gatsby-adjacent. I am as surprised as you are.

Alright, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been too surprised, given that Francesca May is one of my favourite authors. If anyone could overcome my decade-strong aversion to Gatsby it would be her. And, lo and behold, she did!

Wild and Wicked Things is like what would happen if you took Gatsby, added lesbian witches, and then killed a certain character off halfway through. Not telling who that character is, although you can probably make a fair guess. And for these very reasons, it’s entirely glorious.

Every time I’ve reviewed a book by May in the past, I’ve mentioned just how good her characterisations are, and that is so very true of this book as well. Obviously, my first thought about this book is women—, but my second and third are just how rounded and complex these women are. You cannot sum them up in a few sentences because they are so much more than all that. I think that’s the biggest strength of May—the characters not only leap off the page, but they feel so very real, so very human, messy and flawed but full of love. And this is all established seamlessly with the rest of the narrative.

You can tell this is all developed with such care, crafted so well within the rest of the book that you barely clock this as information to absorb. The same goes for the worldbuilding. All of it comes together so neatly that you wonder how you never knew it before. The Gatsby crossed with Practical Magic comparison is apt, but this is a book that transcends those comps too. Frankly, I think we should all start referring to Gatsby as Wild and Wicked Things but without the magic, because this book so surpasses Gatsby that, honestly, I think we should just forget that book exists. (I’m not biased at all…)

And then we get to the relationships. If you’ve ever wanted to feel so entirely feral over a sapphic relationship, this is the book for you. I cannot put into words just how much Annie and Emmeline made me feel. You know when something in a book just makes you want to scream into a pillow? That’s their entire relationship to me. That feeling but constant. Every minute they’re on page, that.

One last thing then: what this book did very well was take the bare bones of Gatsby and make it into something new. Let me make this comparison with another retelling of it, The Chosen and the Beautiful. Where that keeps very close to the book, even using dialogue and phrases lifted straight from the pages of it (to its detriment for me), this one departs from it around halfway through, and isn’t tracking nearly so close for the first half anyway. That, to me, is how you do a good retelling. You make it into something new.

So, if I haven’t convinced you to read this book with this review, then I have utterly failed in my job. I may as well just throw in the towel now. This has to be one of the best books of 2022, and if you can’t see that, sorry but there’s little hope for you.


Anna’s Review:

Imagine The Great Gatsby, but if Gatsby was a nonbinary lesbian blood witch. That single sentence alone should be enough to convince all the people with good taste to read Wild and Wicked Things, but I can and will say more!

Wild and Wicked Things is very much an adult book, despite the description that seems very in vogue for the current young adult landscape. This isn’t an admonishment of any kind, though, for neither of the literature groups. It’s simply something to be taken into account, when managing your reading expectations. Wild and Wicked Things is a slow book, it takes time to develop the world, the characters, it pushes the plot forward in small steps. And it’s very dark and bloody (figuratively and literally).

The slowness of the book works like a charm (no pun intended), because of May’s writing style. There’s no other word to describe it but lush. It shines like a diamond, every sentence somehow more beautiful than the last. Some descriptions feel truly otherworldly, while others forcefully bring you to the pain & dirt of everyday life. The stylistic choices help create the atmosphere of the scenes themselves.

And given that this is an adult novel, you as the reader have to piece together the world and its rules yourself. You’re given some pieces of information here and there, but only in the way that is natural to the characters existing in said world. No conversations about things all parties already know about, no infodumping in the narrative. No holding your hand. All is as it’s supposed to be in a fantasy book.

The greatest achievement of Wild and Wicked Things are the characters, though. Some of them are terribly selfish, some of them will give all of themselves for others, and all of them are so very, very human. They grow throughout the story, as well, especially Annie. Her journey into confidence, into finding a goal in life, mirrors her lesbian awakening. It’s absolutely spectacular.

Wild and Wicked Things is the kind of book to make you feel things. It’s full to the brim with magic, and yearning, and secrets… It’s not an easy to forget story, instead one that will find a place in your heart, like the characters within who carved a space for themselves in the world with blood & tears & love.

I feel like I don't have much to say about this book. That's not because I didn't like it, I enjoyed it well enough, but something is missing for me. The first 30% felt really slow and was difficult for me to get through. After that it picked up and was fairly paced the rest of the book. It was a bit difficult for me to fully immerse myself in the story, I didn't really connect with any of the characters personally, not that they were terribly written, there was actually decent detail put into each of the characters. The setting(s) could have used some of that extra description, though. This book gave me Great Gatsby meets Practical Magic vibes and I didn't hate it, and would read more from the author, I'm just not sure this book was for me. That doesn't mean it won't be for you, though, and I guarantee there are people who will adore this book. Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This is a book with a beautiful thriller pacing where it builds and builds until suddenly we are on this insane roller coaster with our characters as their lives clash and meld in the oddest but most satisfying ways. The magic that we find in this novel was a no-brainer for Francesca as she has always loved that feeling of dark magic and the betrayal of self that it brings about in the magic user.

One of the biggest themes of this book is that idea of self-confidence and the coming of age issue of finding out how much to sacrifice in order to get what you want. Francesca admits that most of these characters have a lack of self-confidence which drives them to sacrifice too much of themselves to reach their goals. Bea is really the best example as she is super selfish and while she has the same goal as everyone else of being happy; however her idea of happiness is materialistic and she gives up everything in order to keep a rich husband.

Sadly this was just painfully slow with no action, intrigue, or interesting characterization happening for nearly a fifth of what is not a short book. That made the rest of this feel very slow to get through and I struggled to focus on what was happening, especially as the chapters shifted POV.

The magic that’s promised and sounds intriguing in the synopsis was no where to be seen for quite a while and the alternating POVs were confusing with each introducing other side characters with seemingly little fanfare while the bulk of their narratives focused on describing everything in minute detail. I can appreciate a slow burn unfurling of magic, but there has to be enough to sustain my interest, and this didn’t have it.

The plot just wasn’t clear from the beginning and the characters didn’t have much depth to make them fee relatable or that you could root for them.

This book starts just as World War I ends and our main character, Annie Mason, has traveled to settle her late father's estates on Crow Island. When she arrives she notices that her neighbors are quite odd and there's a bit of gossip about them dabbling into the magical arts and being witches. While on Crow Island she sees her former best friend who had left her without a word in the past and they reconnect. When Annie meets one of her odd neighbors Emmeline she feels this strange pull towards the woman who dresses like a man. She later finds out that Bea is not being completely truthful with her husband Arthur and then Annie sees Bea at one of Emmeline's parties after Arthur warns her about the odd neighbors. As Annie becomes closer to Emmeline things start to become complicated and the magic surrounding them starts to unfurl.

I found this gothic historical fantasy to be very atmospheric and beautifully written. I love the creepy ambience the author created throughout the story that really lended a hand to the magic filled world. I enjoyed reading from almost all of the characters point of views and getting little hints of who these peoples were before the narration switched back to Annie. I really liked how far Annie came from the first time I was introduced to her all the way to the part in the story where she really found her fire and spirit. While I really enjoyed the descriptive way the author drew us into the magical world that was dangerous and beautiful, I found some of the book to be a little slow. I loved the easy way the author handled self acceptance and being different in the story. If you love historical gothic fantasies filled with witchcraft and slow burn sapphic romance then this is the book for you.

Thank you to Netgalley and Redhook Books for the digital copy of this book with me in exchange for an honest review.

I hear gender flipped Gatsby with witches I requested immediately. The setting & atmosphere of the book were captivating and well written.

The reason I’m giving it 4 instead of a full 5 is because of character development. I wish Nathan & Isobel’s characters had been more fleshed out. I absolutely love a found family & I feel like there was a lot of unexplored potential here. We also don’t get to know any of the characters super well outside of their magic & their one (1) personality trait.

On that note, Annie’s character arc was more of a jump than an arc. The book starts with us being told how meek Annie is/was, but we never really see that? It’s just a lot of “Old Annie would have run, but not now.” I would have liked to see more of a gradual character development of her really growing into herself. It was just a very sudden change. I did like her relationship with Emmaline though I would be greedy and would have liked more scenes of their relationship developing.

I also really liked the narrative set up with flashback scenes and withholding information from us, in the beginning I found it very confusing and eventually went back in the book when I was getting more into it and understanding of the plot, it was only then I was making any connections between the past and present.

I would just really, really like to live in a cottage on the beach of Crow Island where I take long walks with my cup of tea while listening to the sounds of the ocean with my witch girlfriend, is that too much to ask?