Not my usual read, but I enjoyed every minute of it! The prose was poignant and dripping with detail. Morgyn is an emerging voice to look out for.

To be utterly frank, I thought The Bane Witch might fall into the "hate read" category for me. I was incredibly skeptical that an author could weave the familial whimsy of Practical Magic with the twisted and compulsive nature of Gone Girl. I WAS WRONG!

Readers follow Piers Corbin as she flees her deeply violent marriage. Her only hope for survival involves a twisted and methodical plan to stage her own death and forge forward into a new life. Her only chance is to find her estranged great-aunt, confronting her family's past that brims with dark and dangerous magic.

This book moves! The story is utterly compulsive, but it also offers nuanced characters and a cozy atmosphere. I often find, as readers, we must choose one or the other, but Morgyn deftly offers both in an intoxicating blend! The Bane Witch is a story that explores the duality of truth—much of the plot exists in the grey, and that is ever so refreshing! It's feminine rage that honors the good guys. It's girls being bad with a moral compass. It's lovable characters who don't always get a happily-ever-after. Most importantly, it is DAMN good!

It's rare that a book makes it onto my "Slump Breaker" recommendation pile... but The Bane Witch just landed itself on the top!

I know what you’re thinking: “Jaime, why not 5 stars?” Well, friends, I think that's more a "me" thing, not the book. The author offers the most beautiful and evocative atmospheric moments, and greedily, I wanted more!

Thank you St. Martin's Publishing and NetGalley - this book is a witchy season must read!

It turns out that Piers is not just a victim of domestic violence with a hunger for poison....she's a bane witch destined to help protect women by trapping and poisoning dangerous men. After faking her own death and running to upstate New York into the arms of her mysterious crone-ish great aunt Myrtle Piers uncovers who she truly is and starts grappling with what it means to be a killer while also trying to assess where her loyalties lie.

I'm all in on witchy women getting revenge on violent men. I love poison, I love a coven, and I'm always up for a tryst with a sexy local sheriff. For me, all of these elements worked and I devoured this book.

I don't want to give anything away but I did find the last quarter of the book a bit chaotic, a bit rushed, and Piers made some decisions that have me rotting for her a little less. I would still highly recommend for anyone who likes mystery, thrillers or witchy vibes.

This book was excellent! The plot was new and refreshing. As readers, we got to see Piers make a full journey, everything coming into completion at the end with a plot point that I won't spoil but that was perfectly timed. A heroine who can save herself, a romance subplot that added to the book and didn't take away (and a MMC who let the FMC be her own woman - so refreshing to see). This book had a great narrative, I never felt like putting the book down because I was irritated with the choices the FMC was making. I just really enjoyed it all around. This will be a definite buy for the library I work at and I think others will really enjoy it as well. 5/5 stars and HIGHLY recommend.

I loved every word of this book. I see the possibility of individual stories, but I really like that this is a stand-alone. It has all the best witchy-elements and I've not seen this particular witchy-trope before. It was a great read to the very end!

This story was SO grabbing! Each of the characters had so much life and you could feel everything from stomach churning, relief, heart ache, to empowerment. The version of witches was so unique and FLAWLESSLY done! This book will for sure be one I will re read!!

What an incredibly book. Magic, mystery, murder - I love the empowered women them of the story. There are a load of triggers here, including but not limited to rape, domestic abuse, and murder. Despite these subjects being ones I tend to avoid, this book was so well-written, the magic such a unique approach, and the previously mentioned women empowerment, I just couldn’t put this book down. In fact, I woke in the middle of the night and read for two hours!

The description of Gone Girl crossed with Practical Magic is apt - as long as you remember it’s a very dark Practical Magic.

This was such a great read, it really drew me in from the first page and kept me reading late into the night. The book is about a woman escaping an abusive relationship and rediscovering herself. I really liked the unique storyline about a line of women with magical powers defending other women. This didn't feel like the typical witch trope. The book was fast paced and I enjoyed Piers character development along the way. I loved how even though Piers had a lot of trauma in her past she discovered how strong she was with the help of her family. This was my first read by Ava Morgan and now I want to read everything else she's written. Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Publishing for the arc.

If you’re looking for a dark thriller/fantasy/mystery that’s incredibly unique, The Bane Witch checks all the boxes. While being intriguing and cleverly crafted, this book does need to come with a fair amount of trigger warnings such as (not limited to) SA, CSA, domestic abuse, miscarriage, suicide, graphic descriptions of violence and murder. That being said, if you can get past how dark it is, it’s a fun psychological cat and mouse book that’s hard to put down.

Piers, a victim of extreme domestic abuse, stages her suicide as a means of escaping her husband who she intuits is going to kill her if she doesn’t get away from him. She runs straight to her estranged and quirky aunt in a reclusive mountain forest neighborhood up north to discover that her world isn’t what she thought it once was because she isn’t who she thought she was. Piers is a bane witch who has the power to ingest deadly toxins without harm in order to poison and effectively kill off deadly men. Unfortunately for Piers, she didn’t understand the burden she was born under, and in her bid for freedom, she left a trail that puts not only her but her whole family at risk for exposure. Can Piers tie up all her loose ends before her mistakes catch up to her?

I would like to thank St Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thanks so much to Ava Morgyn and St. Martin's Press | St. Martin's Griffin for the eARC. This is a perfect Spooky Season book. It's like a fantasy romance murder mystery book. It's not too spicy either! It took me a a bit to get into it but still a good book.

"If I had shown up on your doorstep, told you that you were an ancient weapon magically designed to be a defender of women and children by taking the lives of predatory men...."

This book was so good! It's a murder mystery mixed with a darker version of Practical Magic. The magic system felt really unique and I loved all the female empowerment/rage!

It's important to have books like this one, and I'll tell you why:

I've gone on record in other reviews stating that I suspect I've outgrown the normal 'urban fantasy' tropes. I find them trite and predictable. But THIS novel, it has all the ingredients: magic in the modern word, a shadowy supernatural underbelly beneath reality, a person discovering their powers in a very 'yer a wizard, Harry' way so that exposition and world-building can be conveniently dumped onto the main character as a proxy fish-out-of-water, romance/sexuality blooming in the midst of life-and-death stakes. But it's all done SO WELL!

Highly recommended for fans of bloody fantasy/crime novels, female empowerment, and sweet dogs named Bart.

Talk about a book that you can't get out of your head! This was a chilling and yet beautiful story all around. There are so many monologues and scene descriptions throughout the novel that I just thought were a masterclass in writing. I have no doubt that certain scenes will be staying with me for a long time.

Ava Morgyn did such a fantastic job making me feel both dread and feminist empowerment throughout each chapter. There are some heavy themes throughout this book, such as assault, abuse, murder, sometimes offering graphic descriptions of such details, so I do hope that the publisher includes a trigger warning at the beginning before the book is finalized.

I love the concept of bane witches and how their magic works. Anytime Piers and the venery would dive into their lore, I was hooked, but it would often cut back and forth with a police procedural b-plot that I wasn't all that invested in. Those chapters are vital to the plot, but anytime they popped up, I just kept wanting to go back to the women and see what they were up to! Overall, The Bane Witch was a captivating, eerie page-turner of a thriller that I hope to find more of in the future.

Big thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin for the advanced review copy!

This book has me hooked almost from page one. I was enthralled by the magic in this story. The mystery surrounding it and how the poisons worked were all working together to keep me turning page after page after page. It was so intriguing how the magic pulled those seeking evil in so they could be destroyed. I loved this one and can’t wait to read more from this author.

This book was honestly incredible. I was really surprised by how much I loved it.

The whole thing starts out feeling like a murder mystery of a sort, but eventually ends up pulling fantasy elements into the story.

It built up quickly enough that I was kept enraptured, but not so fast that I felt confused or lost. Everything came together fairly well too.

The characters were fascinating and unique too. What a great Halloween read!

5/5 stars. This was the perfect spooky season book.

I enjoyed this book from start to finish! I love murder mysteries, Thrillers, Fantasy, and I love when there is romance thrown in. This book was a brilliant combination of these genres. The description for this book says "witches meets Gobe Girl", or something to that effect, and boy does it deliver.

*SPOILER ALERT

Piers is a character who plots and executes the perfect plan to escape her abusive husband. Adding in the fact that she is from a long line of witches who kill abusive men with poison and I was hooked.

Do the men they poison deserve to die? Absolutely. Did I enjoy the fact that these witches were getting justice via murder? Heck yes, these bad men have to go. Would I recommend this book to friends? Absolutely.

The romance in this book was great, it wasn't over the top or too raunchy unlike in some other fantasy books, but still present and enjoyable.

I haven't read a book about witches in a while, but I have to admit this one has me wanting to go find some more to read!

Very well done! Thank you NetGalley for the awesome read!

Piers Corbin is a thirty-something in a horrible marriage, an abusive husband who has threatened to kill her and the only way out is to fake her death. This fake-out was thought out very well, at least up until the point Piers jumped off a bridge. She escapes to her great-aunt's house in the middle of nowhere. There she learns that the cravings that she has had since a child were all a part of her witch ancestry. Her venery of witches, from the same family, all inherit this to varying degrees. They can eat toxic plants and poison their victims. Their magic lures these victims to them, all are men, and all are horrible. Each witch lures a particular type of bad to them and Piers lures the worst of the worst. As she learns who she is, she is also drawn to the town sheriff, in a romantic and non deadly way. With bodies dropping all around Piers can she pull her life together?

When I first started reading this book I had to go look at the description a few times because the first several chapters had no witchy vibes at all. It was all about a battered wife trying to escape her evil husband. Which, in itself would be a good story, but I was expecting more magic. We get there though, as Piers is escaping we have bits and pieces of her past which brings us to the big reveal when she finally discovers who she is and who her mother was. The book is all about empowerment of the women over the bad men of the world. The overall gist is a bit depressing when you get down to it. None of the women can keep their sons in fear they may accidentally kill them. They don't have any real romantic love, because they hunt and kill bad men. The venery is in control of everyone's lives and finances, I don't love that. The hunt and the journey were amazing. The growth of Piers and the changes that we see in her were subtle, but not unrealistic. The feelings I had while reading this pushed me to want to rate this a bit higher than a 4 and I am still now teetering between a 4 and 4.5. I do feel like we had some holes that keep me where I'm at. We get this second POV, and though those two characters do come together, it is lackluster and anticlimactic. Like the author was like, Oh yeah, I have this one guy. I would almost have been ok having all of that side being a mystery and just being surprised at the surprise. We knew that twist was coming because it was broadcast so heavily. Then we brush past the trials that the venery gives Piers, just oh yeah it happened. The end. Overall though, I like the budding romance, the magic of the Bane Witches, the hunt of the victims, and Piers' gifts. I wish we could see more of this and know if she was special or if everyone was like her. Then we get that ending. I would totally read a book with the cousin who comes to visit, I forgot her name. She seems like she would have an amazing story, plus hunting bad guys, bane witch style. That would be pretty fun. Anyway, this book is worth the time. It is unique in the magic system and has pretty amazing FMCs.

Okay. So I enjoyed this book and all, but “He takes my breasts in his mouth like candied apples …??” Really?? This is the best simile that the author could come up with to describe this situation?? I mean, perhaps I'm in the minority here, but I bite my candied apples. And fairly forcefully, too, because, you know, it's an apple and apples are firm? And then I end up with sticky bits of apple all in my teeth and it's pretty annoying (which is why I don't often eat candied apples), and I am not even sure how this imagery has anything at all to do with foreplay? At least the food-related stuff stopped there and there were no descriptions of her taking anything in her mouth "like a churro” or whatever. Ahem.

Anyway, bad fruit-based similes aside, I did enjoy this book and I kind of wish I were a bane witch now. I don't necessarily want to poison anyone, but it'd kind of be nice to have the option if it came down to it, you know? Just in case?

The plot isn't incredibly novel – there are a bazillion books out there about women who return home to their estranged families and discover that they have magical powers. The bane witch aspect of it is an interesting twist, though, and Morgyn does a fantastic job of fleshing out the magical aspects of the story. I really enjoyed the lore behind the creation of the first bane witches, as well as learning about the powers and rituals of the venery. This is a dark tale that's all about justice and revenge and feminism and taking power back from abusive men, and it's really quite enthralling.

However, I did feel that the climax was a bit, well … anticlimactic. I was absolutely surprised by the identity of the Saranac Strangler … or, rather, I was surprised by who it wasn't because I was certain that I had things figured out. But, otherwise, for a showdown that the entire book has been leading up to, there really isn't a whole lot to it – it's over and done with in minutes.

Overall, though, this was a fun read. Well, okay, I guess “fun” might not be the right word because it's a dark and violent and infuriating tale, but it's still also awesomely magical and suspenseful at the same time. Between this and The Witches of Bone Hill, Ava Morgyn is quickly becoming one of my new favorite witchy writers.

3.7 stars, rounded up.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin for providing me with an advance copy of this book to review. Its expected publication date is March 18, 2025.

The premise on this is intriguing, and it starts out incredibly strong. I'm usually reading several books simultaneously, depending on my location, and I found myself "cheating" with The Bane Witch, pulling it up everywhere. I also loved that it didn't pull any punches with the poisonous plants. Often, fantasy books will substitute fairly innocuous herbs in their magic spells, which is always a challenge for the suspension of disbelief. However, once the main character, Piers, reaches her long-lost aunt in the Adirondacks, it really loses momentum. It began to feel like a series of cool scenes, all dialed up to 11, barely hanging together by a thread. A reader can only ask of the characters, "But, why would you do that?" so many times before she checks out of the story. I like witch stories, but I don't much care for women in violent peril stories, and the one did not outweigh the other in the final tally for this book.

I heard that this book was a much darker practical magic and I can say I definitely got that vibe reading this! I enjoyed the take on witches and magic and I like Piers a lot! However, this book was very slow paced and it felt like a slog to get through at times because nothing much happened in the beginning. The overall story was well done and I liked this author's writing style though!