Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this eARC!

2.5 stars rounded up.
The dissonance between the way this book is marketed and the way it plays out took me a beat to recover from. It’s not until roughly 35% of the way through the book that we get the start of the romance that is so central to the description, and even then it felt a little hollow and slightly instalove-y to me. The central plot points don’t really pick up until halfway through the book, leaving some scenes feeling rushed and others feeling incredibly drawn out. This led to some pacing struggles, and with writing that is heavily tell don’t show, it felt difficult at times to feel invested.

The magic system and world building felt slightly underdeveloped, and I still don’t fully understand the main antagonist’s motivations and why she hates Marigold and her family so much. We’re told Ash is the opposite of Honey and that’s pretty much all the motivation given for the Ash Witch. The curse itself felt like an excuse to keep the love interests apart - the motivations given for it are to end the Honey Witch line, but the practicality of it doing that within the world is slim. It would’ve made more sense just to say it was to cause suffering and loneliness and leave it at that.

I loved the premise and it’s so cozy! I just didn't love the pacing or the romance personally. But overall it was a fun read and the magic was super interesting!

I enjoyed the warm and cozy feel of The Honey Witch, however the romance fell flat for me. I was expecting more and I got disappointed. However, the author's prose is beautiful and descriptive. I just wish romance was at the forefront, as I feel like this book was marketed incorrectly.

3 stars for The Honey Witch. You will like this book if you like slow paced, cozy, lighthearted fairytale like stories.
The Honey Witch follows Marigold, a honey witch in training, as she learns self discovery and love. Marigolds curse to accepting her position as the honey witch is no one can fall in love with her. Throughout this story friendships are formed and refound. Marigolds want to escape her curse gets herself and her friends in trouble they never expected.
Im rating this book 3 stars for reasons that others may LOVE this book. It was slow paced and your typical fairytale. When big events happened it was like BOOM EVENT, no anticipation or build up. It’s a sweet story and I can appreciate it.

Marigold Claude has never felt a part of the world she has grown up in. When her grandmother comes to take her to the family cottage on the isle of Innisfree Marigold jumps at the change. There she is to become a Honey Witch. She will learn how to care for the cottage, the land and the people but in exchange she will never be able to find love due to a curse. Marigold's life is put to a test when magical skeptic Lottie Burke comes into her life.

I absolutely adored this book. I cried multiple times. The love story is great but what really grabbed my heart was Marigold's relationship with her grandmother and Mr. Benny. The magic system in this book is very interesting. I love how it is tied to nature and especially to bees and honey.

Thank you to NetGalley and Redhook Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

There had been a cozy fantasy gap in my life that this book was able to fill PERFECTLY. There was complexity in both plot and character while still maintaining all of the things my cottage-core-loving heart desired.

I will say: I'm glad I read the author's note on GoodReads. Because while the setting and magic are extremely cozy, there are some potential content warnings that I'd recommend looking at ahead of reading.

A few highlights:
-Sapphic Pining
-Regency, but only as a secondary setting
-"Their hands brushed" energy (iykyk)
-Bees & Honey magic system
-Practical Magic Vibes

This book, by far, has been one of the most beautiful, captivating, and magical reads that I have ever read. From the very first chapter, I could not get enough. The story of Marigold Claude is wildly heartbreaking and yet at the same time so heartwarming.

Sydney J. Shields has created something extraordinary with the island of Innisfree as well as with every single character that is a part of this book. I'm so thankful that I was granted early access to The Honey Witch & I will be recommending this book for many years to come, especially as one of my top favorite books.

the love interest was only fully introduced like 40% into the book, i feel like ? also, i really get peeved whenever i read “pregnant pause” and i saw that at least twice lol. i think the concept of this book is pretty cute and interesting, but i just couldn’t get into it enough.

and thank you to netgalley and redhook books for giving me an ARC of this book !

Warm, Wild, Cozy, Enchanting. All words I would use to describe this book. The way it’s written, it feels like the book itself is your friend. It had some of the most beautiful and profound commentary on the human experience.

The story was very sweet, but I must admit, I wasn’t the biggest fan of Marigold. I hate saying that because it doesn’t feel like there’s anything inherently wrong with the main character. But she was incredibly naive about love, somewhat selfish, kind of condescending, and very judgmental at times. While she did grow throughout the story, it was hard for me to shake off how it made me feel initially because there were little flare ups that reminded me of that side of her

What a lovely cozy witchy story. Marigold has to overcome curses and loss, the author does a great job at setting up the world especially the magic system! Loved the Honey Witch!

Thank you to Netgalley and Redhook Books for an ARC of this book!

This book was COZY. I absolutely adored the magic that was throughout this book. I loved the relationship between Mari and her grandmother. I also loved all of the women empowerment!

"What any woman wants for herself is not for you to decide. You would do well to remember that."

While I enjoyed the story I felt that there could have been more *umph* in the 50-80 mark in the book.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGally for the ARC of The Honey Witch. I was really interested in this book when I first heard about it because I love a sapphic historical moment but unfortunately this book just didn’t do it for me. The writing style felt very YA and I just couldn’t get into it. In some spots I could have sworn this was a YA novel but then it threw some spice in to the mix and reminded me that nope this was meant to be adult. Wasn’t for me but I can see this being popular with some.

I received this ARC from Net Galley.

I want to start with the positives of this book because it had so much potential. The concept of a cozy witchy romance novel with honey being a key ingredient is such a great idea. This book was indeed very cozy, low stakes, and the storyline was very simple and easy to follow. It was very atmospheric and would be a great spring read. The pacing of this book was also medium to quick. I must mention the cover because it is so cute.

Now where this novel fell short for me is partially in the development of the various relationships - some were well developed (her link to her grandmother) while others felt really rushed or forced. There was a mention of a very deep connection with a character followed by a big amount of time apart (several years) and then when they reunite there is no time of relearning, just immediate closeness again. Similarly, I find the lack of time spent on resolution of conflicts made it difficult to feel depth - such as her big disagreement with her mother and her return with very little disagreement and the random switch from enemies to lovers from the love interest.

This novel also reads very YA the entire time, simple yet well written prose, very juvenile plot/character development. But suddenly, there is a big focus on intimacy and wanting to sleep together. This, coupled with the sudden change from the love interest mistreating the main character to being in love felt jarring.

I really was hoping to enjoy this more but this book does have some great elements and if the descriptions sounds like something you would enjoy I would still advise to give it a try

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC! Minor spoilers ahead.

The Honey Witch is a cozy vibes story of Marigold who learns she is a Honey Witch. Marigold is the odd duck of Bardshire and has no talents other than eating dessert. After a huge heartbreak, she's decided love isn't for her and she has no desire to become a wife and mother. So when her grandmother arrives and tells her she is cursed to never be loved, Marigold is fine with leaving the life behind in favor of becoming a Honey Witch.

She spends the while learning to be a witch and then meets Lottie. A beautiful, skeptical, sour tempered tattooed woman who doesn't believe in magic. Marigold makes it her goal to change her mind, and maybe break her curse as well. All the while, the menacing Ash Witch who cursed her family is gathering strength to take over the land that Marigold guards and the bees that make the honey she needs.

Overall, The Honey Witch was a sweet, short cozy book. It has it's flaws including some world building and pacing issues, but overall a good read. The queer representation in this book is amazing. There are lesbians, bisexual women, pan men, etc. It's also easily accepted, casual queerness. There are no coming out stories, no sock when a male character introduces his male partner. I would recommend The Honey Witch to anyone wanting a cute, cozy queer book. There is some language and one spicy scene but its pretty mild

The Honey Witch was a cute and enjoyable read, but it felt like something was missing throughout it. I'm not sure what exactly, but the storyline felt incomplete.

I enjoyed the first two chapters and I connected with Marigold"s character. I thought she was very relatable in the way she felt disconnected from romance and her lack of special abilities compared to her siblings. I liked the connections she shared with her family, it felt like a realistic family dynamic. Honey and Ash Witches being opposites and the Landvaettir were both things that I thought were interesting and I would have loved if there was more information on Ash Witches and the way that they may be able to work with or complement Honey Witches in their work. Some parts of the story were predictable, which isn't a bad thing, but I won't spoil anything.

I thought that there were a couple of scenes that were very out of place or poorly timed in the story, like the scene that happens when Marigold and Althea get to Innisfree. I understand the purpose of the scene, but it felt very weirdly timed and written. This might be a vague spoiler, but the tattoo aspect that comes up later in the story was weird to me as well. I said before that the storyline felt incomplete and it might be because the aspect of Marigold's curse and the romance between her and Lottie felt very shallow. It was a significant part of the book, but it didn't feel well-developed. Also, time passed by very quickly throughout the book and it would've been nice to have more scenes where she is adapting to being alone to manage this isle with powers that she only just gained access to.

Overall, it was a fun read and I liked the concept, but it felt shallow in its execution.

When I dove into The Honey Witch, I was expecting stunning visuals, cottagecore sweetness, and unique magic. Suffice it to say, Shields didn’t disappoint!

The beauty of this book was how clearly you could taste the honey magic on your tongue, how sharply you could feel Marigold’s fear of being trapped and ethereal joy on Innisfree. It was cozy imagery tied up with ribbons of heart-wrenching quotes about girlhood, grief, and love. I found the curse’s insistence between love or power being overcome by the power OF love to be deliciously ironic and heartwarming. It was also a breath of fresh air to crack into a book in a historical fantasy setting and have queerness and queer joy just as common and accepted as traditional het romance.

The Honey Witch reminds me of summers spent reading secondhand Nora Roberts books set in Ireland—a treasured and silly tradition I started many years ago on vacation. Shields’s style and tone brought me a similar sense of comfort.

My only wish is that we could’ve seen more of Versa and expanded more on the history between Ash and Honey witches. She spends much of the book looming as a larger than life specter only to be a bit disappointing when she makes her appearance as only a frail—but powerful!—woman. I would’ve loved to see more of her wickedness as the foil to the light in Mari’s magic.

This was a book I was honored to receive for review and am absolutely delighted to own when it releases in May! Thank you very much to Orbit Books and Orbit Books UK for the opportunity to experience this early whimsy!

I hate having to write this review because I feel as though this book could have been good. It read like an excellent short story someone would write in high school. Is that harsh? The story was there and the characters were mostly there but man…that dialogue was clunky.

I enjoyed the world and the magic system (I appreciate a magic system mostly based on vibes) and it seemed like a good story to tell, but the way the characters interacted with each other was just simple and unrealistic. I’m kinda sad because I was ready to love this book.

I received this book from net galley in exchange for a review.

I enjoyed this read very much! This book made my heart happy by fulfilling the niche of queer romantic fantasies I love. The writing style was easy to read, with some clichéd dialogue and tropes. I found the pacing of certain events perplexing, but that doesn’t affect the enjoyment of the story for me.
Thank you very much Net Galley for this E-arc and author Sydney J. Shields for taking a chance on a brand new net galley reader.

The Honey Witch started out strong, got a bit lacking through the middle, and completely fell apart for me in the final third.
I really, really wanted to like this book. I liked Marigold in the beginning, the magical concepts felt fresh and intriguing, and being cursed to forsake love for magic was an interesting conflict. Add in the promise of a sapphic romance complicated by the aforementioned curse, a cottagecore atmosphere, and a queer normative historical setting, and I was really excited!
But in the first 100 or so pages, Marigold and her love interest, Lottie, had only two extremely brief interactions. After spending the opening chapters of the book waxing poetic about being a wild thing that craved freedom, Marigold spent several chapters moping around Innisfree being bored and lonely. The writing style unfortunately felt stiff and distant, which wasn’t helped by the odd decision to write in third person present tense. I’m familiar with first person present or third person past, but third person present just feels… strange.
When the romance did finally kick off, it tried to do both too much and too little at once. Marigold and Lottie are, simultaneously, enemies-to-lovers, star-crossed lovers, fated lovers, and insta-love. Instant star-crossed lovers can work; star-crossed enemies-to-lovers can work; and fated lovers with any of the other three tropes could work. But instant love with the enemies-to-lovers trope is hard to pull off, and all four of these tropes combined is just too much. And ultimately, I just don’t know why these characters like each other. By the final third, the idea of being apart is pure agony to both of them, and they’re willing to take great risks under the affects of the curse just to touch each other – but I don’t know WHY. They’re drawn to each other because they’re both hot and they’re soulmates. That’s… kinda it.
The part of the story that I liked most was the magic, and the slowly unfolding mysteries about the curse, strange happenings around Innisfree, and just Lottie in general. When the book was focused on these elements, I was engaged, curious, and putting together theories. While I ultimately guessed everything pretty accurately, I don’t think that’s a bad thing – being able to figure out what’s foreshadowed just means the foreshadowing worked. For the most part, I could understand why Marigold wasn’t figuring things out yet, and that made the obvious answers tolerable in the context of the story.
But even that ultimately didn’t work in the final third. Characters started using magic in ways that had never been previously established. Great feats of magic were used for incredibly petty reasons that ended up not mattering in the slightest. Magical abilities that were explicitly mentioned in text weren’t used in a dramatic moment where it would have made most sense.
In the end, instead of a warm, magical romance with tension, drama, and sweetness, this book just ended up being a bewildered, frustrated shrug. It’s not all bad, and I’m sure this will appeal to other readers, but for me it’s very middling and disappointing. I give this 2.5/5 stars.

In this episode, I couldn’t help but be invested in a compelling story from a young new author…
Friends, friends, friends.
Welcome back to Teatime Reading where there are books in progress.
Back in early December of last year, I stumbled upon an author’s reel on Instagram. There, she described the characters in her debut novel and I was instantly curious.
That was Sydney J. Shields and her book is The Honey Witch. It is scheduled for a May 2024 release date, and spoiler alert, I loved it so much.
From the Synopsis:
Twenty-one-year-old Marigold Claude has always preferred the company of the spirits of the meadow to any of the suitors who’ve tried to woo her. So, when her grandmother whisks her away to her cottage on the tiny Isle of Innisfree with an offer to train her as the next Honey Witch, she accepts immediately. But her newfound magic and independence comes with a price: no one can fall in love with the Honey Witch.
This is only one part of the synopsis, but the rest is more plot-focused and as I looked it over, it was less relevant and bordered dangerously close to spoiler territory.
I adored Marigold so much in this book. Her family curse was dramatic and I loved seeing the story deal with that wrinkle. Her friend August, her siblings and family, and Lottie all made me so happy.
Her grandmother Althea’s invitation to join her as the next Honey Witch took me back to many of the best moments in other stories where the heroine discovers her true identity or powers.
Even if I’d characterize this book as a tad predictable, it is the heart and spirit of the characters themself that made it so lovable. Mari, Lottie, August. Each one of them were perfectly written, and in some ways, the quieter moments of this book was what reminded me of the cozy fantasy novel Legends and Lattes that I reviewed a few months ago.
I would love for there to be more stories featuring these characters, but it also felt as if it could be an excellent standalone story. I’m open to either possibility, and the truth is that I will eagerly look forward to the next story that Ms. Shields comes up with.
She is a gifted writer and the way she crafted these characters really moved me several times while reading.
Simply put, the Honey Witch was a novel that continued to draw me into the more emotional, romantic, and cozy type of storytelling that I only recently learned about.
It is an easy book for me to recommend, and I hope you check it out.

Until next time, keep your bookmarks close.
Peace, Love, Pages.


Note: As Always, Affiliate Links are here for your convenience at no cost to you. All reading was at my own expense.