intensely written and intriguingly designed modern gothic story with an awesome writing style and deep characters. 5 stars. tysm for the arc.

The Witch of Willow Sound is a gorgeous novel, from the intriguing cover to the exquisite woodcut flower stamps on each separate, titled book, to the beautifully written story. Unbelievably, this is the author's debut book! Contrary to the title, if you're looking for spooky witchcraft or magical realism, you won't find it here. Oh, there are plenty of witchy accusations and ignorance from people who should know better, considering this is the 21st century. "The history of those accused of being witches, in any culture, is often a story of hatred, oppression, and fear of strong women."

The remote Nova Scotia coastal location is a perfect gothic setting, especially with a deadly hurricane on its way. The story unfolds slowly, bit by bit, as Fade tries to discover what has happened to her Aunt Madeline. Fade carries scars, both physical & emotional, from her years of cyber-hunting child abusers but is still a force to be reckoned with. "After years hunting the most evil monsters on earth, I realized they are everywhere. They look like anyone. They're nothing special. And there's no end to them."

My favorite character was Nish, the folklore historian/archivist, who "looks like he's on the verge of exploding into confetti." The comfortable bantering between Fade and Nish felt like true friendship, even though they are opposites in every way. (I hope there might be another book in the works that continues their adventures, with Nish "Indiana Jones" and Fade "Tony Stark.")

I loved everything about The Witch of Willow Sound and will purchase a copy when it's published. This is a book I will enjoy rereading.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing this ARC.

I really thought that I would love this book based on the cover and the description. I loved the prologue and was very optimistic about where this book was going from there.

And then th rest of the book happened. The writing style of this book really wasn't for me. The main character was supposed to read as tough-as-nails, but to me most of the time she just read as immature and combative for no reason. I think my biggest problem with the book in general was how the dialogue was written, I really didn't enjoy it.

On the other hand I did really enjoy the mystery and the plot itself. I also appreciated the message behind the story. I also liked the writing in the prologue a lot, I wish we got more of that kind of writing.

A thing that I feel is important to point out is that the book is set in modern day, which was not what I assumed based on the description.

The book was very fast paced and I read through it really quickly.

Overall I would recommend this book to people who are interested in the plot and are willing to deal with some clunky dialogue for it.

I really enjoyed reading this modern gothic novel! It kept my attention the entire time reading it. The prologue was very disturbing and graphic, it was definitely a different way to start off a story. However, this is a very important part to read, because there will be a complete understanding as to why it happened. This book has all the gothic book elements in it, which I loved. I found the female main character to be funny, strong, witty, interesting and sarcastic.

What truly intrigued me is that this story is inspired by real witch lore and east coast traditions. This fast paced book is not scary, just a little spooky mixed with a cozy cottage setting. This book has all the witchy vibes! It also comes with mystery, a gothic romance, identity discovery, family secrets, vivid descriptions and the power of magic! The author’s debut novel took me into a rabbit hole of gothic fantasy!

“The Witch of Willow Sound” starts off with an eerie dark disturbing graphic scene. Once the prologue is over, this story takes us on a journey with a girl named Fade. She is asked to look for her aunt, who went missing. Fade is also told to not trust anyone she comes across, including the cops. Willow Sound is the place where her aunt always stays. As Fade arrives at her aunts home, everything about it was different. It was no longer this bright and cheerful cottage, but a dark and gothic one. As this story unravels, we get to learn about Fade and what kind of powers she possesses. Overall, I give this a 4 out of 5 stars!

I highly recommend this to anyone that loves gothic mystery and witchcraft. This reminded me of Alice in Wonderland mixed in with gothic witchcraft. Also, I think readers of the book “The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches” would enjoy this.

Content warnings include murder, death and misogyny.

Thank you to NetGalley, author Vanessa F. Penney and ECW Press publishing for this digital advanced reader’s copy of this book, in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

This book is expected to be published on September 30, 2025!

(Firstly thank you very much for the arc)

To say I couldn’t put this book down is an understatement, It made me late for work twice. And when I was at work I was thinking about how soon I could get back to this book.

It is a wonderful spooky mystery, equal parts cozy and daunting, wrapped up in some truly stunning atmospheric prose. Everything is described with such emotive elegance, the trees, the house, the teacups, the twigs on the ground. I don’t know enough about flowers to actually say “wow, this writer knows a lot about flowers” but it felt like they knew a lot about flowers.

Fade was an excellent and well written protagonist, she’s definitely tough-as-nails like the summary puts it but shes not inhuman. She’s strong, resourceful, funny (her dynamic with Nish was a joy to read, I’m begging for a whole series of their adventures actually) and despite everything, kind. There was so much heart in this book and she was the perfect protagonist to carry it.

Flaws? Made me ship the protagonist with a cop, my moral backbone is breaking.

I think I'll be honest here. I love the story but not the writing style if that makes sense. I'm not a fan of present tense. I like past tense better.
But I very much enjoyed Phaedra's story and getting to know her and her family.
I absolutely lover the mystery of what happened to Madeline.
I also appreciate that the author shows us that people aren't always as they seem. A wolf in sheep's clothing so to speak.
I've not read a book with the Nova Scotia setting at all. So I enjoyed visiting a place I've never been.
The author has also done a great job in making the hairs stand up on the back of my neck lol.
4.5 stars for an awesome storyline.
My thanks for a copy of this book. I was NOT required to write a positive review
All opinions expressed are mine.

A gothic feminist mystery about a missing woman, a rotting town, and the dangerous power of buried truths.

I found The Witch of Willow Sound to be beautifully written, with main characters I genuinely cared about. Although not scary as such, there’s a lingering eeriness that gets under your skin. The injustices explored were haunting.

The Witch of Willow Sound is a fun page turner with an author who so delicately describes the macabre decadently while setting the scene. I could sit there turning each page to get lost in the descriptions of the scene. This gave me high hopes when it began in the cemetery and we really get to see the inner workings of the narrators dark mind in the first perspective. The shift that contributed to the overall rating was the emphasis on witchy stereotypes. I wanted to see something different that challenges those ideas. The writing is beautiful and fun – but this is another tale inspired by the history of burning witches. 3.5 Rated up for how well the writing is incorporated here. Thank you Net Galley for a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The premise of this book is so enticing, right? Our FMC Fade is looking for her missing Aunt who is thought to possibly be a witch by her fellow townspeople. The first five chapters or so, had such a rich and almost gruesome writing style that drew in me so completely. I was fascinated by Fade and how she had grown to be so bitter and distrusting of the world around her, and her relationship with her mother is so hardened that you just want to keep reading to see what’s going to happen. My first issue arose when we met the people living in Grand Tea, the town very close to where Madeline’s home is. First, Corporal Quill, she is the officer that is mostly handling the missing persons case and meets Fade at her Aunt Madeline’s home. Then, the Mayor Dinwald H. Davish, and finally the archivist/historian Dr. Nishant Chaudry (Nish). (There are others, but these are the main three that we deal with in and out of the novel). Fade’s interactions with all of them felt very cartoony, and almost larger than life. The dialogue felt very clunky, and not really how I would imagine people speaking day to day. Dr. Nish specifically, whenever they spoke together, I would just giggle at his sentence structure sometimes. Don’t even get me started though on the Mayor. I understand that he was supposed to be this kind of off putting, weird character for Fade, but he just felt like Mayor Kalabar from Halloweentown, but not nearly as cool.

Then, the author REALLY wants the audience to know that this book took place in Nova Scotia, Canada. It felt like on every page we got a mention or a nod to the country, and while there’s nothing wrong with that at all, everyone in the book lives there, so it felt really redundant for the characters to say things like ‘oh yes here at home in Nova Scotia, Canada I had breakfast’ (not an actual quote, but honestly, close enough in some chapters).

There’s also quite a few grammatical/sentence structuring issues that I’m hoping gets fixed before the final product releases.

While I do think the author struggled quite a bit with character development and making them feel real and intimidating instead of kind of silly, the plot was very fun! Fade basically has to work without the help of the town or cops, because everyone is very distrustful of her. Fade is used to being on her own though and is so brave throughout the book just trying to find her missing family member. I really did feel the desperation and hopelessness from her multiple times.

All in all, this definitely reads like a debut novel, but I can absolutely see the potential in the author's writing. I would love for her to expand on the writing style that she put in the prologue because that was my favorite chapter. The mystery, and imagery she gave was absolutely fantastic, and it felt like that was missing from the rest of the book, except when Fade describes her Aunt’s cabinet of mysteries. I hope she also gets a bit better at fleshing out her side characters a bit more.

Amazing writing, new favorite book!! From the very beginning it hooks you right in. Not enough words to express how much i enjoyed this book.