The Winter Witch Author: Paula Brackston | Language: English | ISBN:
B008RLW408 | Format: PDF
The Winter Witch Description
New York Times bestselling author Paula Brackston transports readers to the windswept mountains of Wales in The Winter Witch, an enthralling tale of love and magic.
In her small early nineteenth century Welsh town, there is no one quite like Morgana. She is small and quick and pretty enough to attract a suitor, but there are things that set her apart from other girls. Though her mind is sharp she has not spoken since she was a young girl. Her silence is a mystery, as well as her magic—the household objects that seem to move at her command, the bad luck that visits those who do her ill. Concerned for her safety, her mother is anxious to see Morgana married, and Cai Jenkins, the widowed drover from the far hills who knows nothing of the rumors that swirl around her, seems the best choice.
After her wedding, Morgana is heartbroken at leaving her mother, and wary of this man, whom she does not know, and who will take her away to begin a new life. But she soon falls in love with Cai’s farm and the wild mountains that surround it. Here, where frail humans are at the mercy of the elements, she thrives, her wild nature and her magic blossoming. Cai works to understand the beautiful, half-tamed creature he has chosen for a bride, and slowly, he begins to win Morgana’s affections. It’s not long, however, before her strangeness begins to be remarked upon in her new village. A dark force is at work there—a person who will stop at nothing to turn the townspeople against Morgana, even at the expense of those closest to her. Forced to defend her home, her man, and herself from all comers, Morgana must learn to harness her power, or she will lose everything in this beautifully written, enchanting novel.
“An enthralling tale of love and magic.” –USA Today
- File Size: 735 KB
- Print Length: 352 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1250001315
- Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books (January 29, 2013)
- Sold by: Macmillan
- Language: English
- ASIN: B008RLW408
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,059 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #6
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical Fiction > Fantasy - #8
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Historical - #8
in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Historical
- #6
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical Fiction > Fantasy - #8
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Historical - #8
in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Historical
THE WINTER WITCH is billed as a romance, which is not normally my genre. To me, however, THE WINTER WITCH is more of a combination of romance, historical, and the supernatural genres, the supernatural being the part I thought I might get into. Surprising, THE WINTER WITCH ended up being the perfect book to curl up with on a cold winter's afternoon.
THE WINTER WITCH is set in Wales and is the story of Morgana, a young woman who cannot speak, but who has mysterious powers that she that frighten her and those around her. Her ailing mother marries her off to a young widowed drover named Cai. The purpose of this marriage is to shield Morgana from the suspicions of her hometown and to provide Cai with a wife, which he is required by law to have if he is to become head drover. Cai brings Morgana home to Ffynnon Las, where she immediately falls in love with her new surroundings. However, Morgana's past and her magic follow her to her new home and mysterious disasters begin to befall the town. Are they Morgana's doing? Or are there darker forces at work? Morgana must come into her own and save the town, her new home, and the man she wants to love. But is this young woman up to the task?
THE WINTER WITCH is told in alternating chapters from the point of view of Morgana and Cai. At first, the alternating of narrators threw me, but I eventually became used to this device. I was more uncomfortable with Morgana's first person voice and Cai's third person voice. I really wanted the author to pick a tense and stick with it. While I came to like the alternating POVs, I found the differing tenses a bit frustrating.
However, that is the only real criticism that I have of THE WINTER WITCH.
I had hopes for The Winter Witch, and also hopes for Paula Brackston. My hope was that perhaps she would take a story that would fall gently and easily into the Romance genre, and make it something powerful, something more than a typical romance. My hopes were cruelly dashed.
The story starts out with a young girl who doesn't quite fit in her community. Her mom is concerned about her as her health declines. By some miracle, a drover from another town approaches the old woman and asks for her daughters hand in marriage. Seems too good to be true! Well, it is! Yes, this girl is different, she has otherworldly powers, which in itself isn't hard to believe, but that this man's home is the site of a special well of water, not to mention a special spell book full of witches spells and incantations for just that special girl to find...well, it should have been too much for most readers to swallow. Ok, even that wasn't so unbelievable. What I found so unbelievable, and what cast this as just another romance for me, was the fact that although this girls life and the lives of those she loves were in mortal danger by an evil woman who wants control of the well and the book of spells, this young woman seems much more concerned with her husband's caresses and kisses and the ponies that they raise. She spends most of the book, while knowing of the mortal danger they are in, chasing ponies, arranging her willful head of hair, and waiting for the next moment her beloved calls her his "wild one." If he called her that once, he called her that a thousand times, and it became tiresome. It went from a term of endearment to one of utter annoyance. She was the typical gorgeous, slightly built slip of a girl from all romance novels. She didn't stand out for me, and neither did he.
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