The Winter Witch: A Novel

A lovely novel, I enjoyed it

The Winter Witch is a bit different than The Witch's Daughter. The storyline doesn't span as many decades, nor does it travel the world. It's not set in modern times, but instead a couple centuries ago. It is just as wonderful, if not more so, than The Witch's Daughter. The village Morgana grew up in knows she's a little different. She doesn't speak, not because she can't, but because she just doesn't. She has powers that she hasn't been taught to control and that show themselves when the time is wrong. Her mother arranges for her to be married to Cai, a marriage that will take Morgana from home and hopefully away from the whispers. While she falls in love with the land immediately, it takes some time before she can admit her feelings for Cai. There's a force in town working against her that will stop at nothing to get what it wants. Morgana is a fantastic character. She may not speak, but she finds ways to communicate as best she can. She doesn't know how to handle the magic inside of her and she's smart enough to know that's a problem. She might have been impulsive as a child, but she has a little more control over herself now. Strong emotions are what bring out her magic. Even though the story takes place in the 19th century, Morgana does not fall into that submissive female role. She fights for herself and those she loves, doing what is necessary and right to save the people around her. Cai is not the strong, dominate male you'd expect from a period novel. He has a great respect for Morgana and views her more as his equal than his property. He wants to do right by her, something that he doesn't have to do according to the standards of the time. He's sweet and loving, and even though he misses his first wife, he is able to understand that she is gone, but Morgana is right in front of him. He's also willing to act however he needs to in order to provide a wonderful life for Morgana. Mrs. Jones is one of my favorite characters of the novel. Her personality is perfect and exactly what Morgana and Cai need in order to find a happy life together. Mrs. Jones fills in as Morgana's mother figure and gives her the love she needs to make the transition into married life as smooth as possible. The story itself was simple, yet beautifully done. It all centers around the love that Cai and Morgana have for each other, and how they will each stop at nothing to protect their life together. Morgana must fight the magical forces trying to separate them and Cai must fight the physical threats. They work fantastically as a team, both in the relationship and defending it. The Winter Witch is a wonderful, beautiful novel that will both tug at your heartstrings and have you sitting on the edge of your seat. It leaves a content feeling as the last page closes, one that lets you take a breath and relax. It's a lovely novel and Brackston is working her way onto my must-read author shelf. This is definitely a good book to read if you enjoy historical fiction with some magic and romance thrown in, this is the book for you.

A captivating story that grabs and holds the reader’s interest. Magic, romance and mystery wrapped up in a novel very difficult to put down.

I was invested in this book & its characters fairly early on... I had no illusions about it being 'great fiction' but I expected a good read with interesting, likeable characters, a well defined plot & an intelligent, well considered conclusion that would explain all the mysteries of the book... Well, I got some of it... The major characters were interesting and very likeable... The 'enemy' was sufficiently evil to drive the plot... The plot had its moments and there were many unpredictable twists... The budding love story was quite nice & expertly done... but the conclusion in the final chapter totally ruined the book for me... Yes, it ended 'well', as well as a book full of tragedy & love would be expected to end... They lived & were deeply in love... However, most of the tragedy was pointlessly heart wrenching - seemingly only for effect, it was used to drive the plot in some cases, in others, just tragedy tossed in for no good reason... My biggest complaint? The story kept leading me to an expectation of explosive reveals during really big moments... None of them happened... No answers, that is... That said, now that you won't expect to have ANY of your questions answered, some outright nonsensical happenings, and contrived coincidences resolve the major storyline involving the evil they must defeat, perhaps you'll enjoy the book for its good points... They are: The well done love story and the descriptive scenery & characters... You need to fully understand that it is LOADED with tragedy that will make you 'hurt' and some of it is just gratuitous, not advancing the plot whatsoever... and that there is plenty of mystery that is never explained... In fact, the book never resolves ANYTHING but the love angle and a poorly rendered defeat of the evil that stands between them... If you're okay with that and really just want a pretty good love story, then go ahead and read it... You may really like it if you come to it without the expectation that the mysteries will ever make any sense... It will grab you and make you care about its characters... but that's why I'm so annoyed at being let down... SPOILERS BELOW!! Don't continue from here if you get upset about spoilers, you've been warned... In one 'big moment', it felt like I was watching an early Harry Potter movie during the first big confrontation... It turned into a clichéd moment where the mysterious, long gone father, whose disappearance was NEVER actually explained either, suddenly shows up to, wait... NOT to save her but to let her just give up peacefully and to forget all about why she was there and what was on the line... the life of herself, her husband, and the well being of virtually the entire land... and she suddenly realized that NO, she wouldn't just give up, she'd fight... We never discovered if it WAS her father or a false image conjured up by Isolda... She didn't know but still turned away from him and she did the lamest crap begging for mercy for her husband, and tricking her by appealing to her ego, as if her enemy should have been taken in by her when she could read her mind... and then this inexperienced witch defeated her mortal enemy, the powerful Isolda by tricking her with her mind? The same mind that Isolda could READ? C'mon... But, defeat her she does... Well, except that at 90% read, OBVIOUSLY it wasn't over... Then the final showdown where her husband suddenly 'saves the day' by tossing her the ONE THING that would allow her to destroy the enemy 'for good' happens out of the blue**... (**detailed in a paragraph below) and by someone who'd never believed a word of the witch stories in the first place... yet suddenly, inexplicably, HE knows how to use the water & its powers with the cursing stone? and who & what Morgana is fighting? and how to defeat her? Seriously? and Morgana never actually does read the book and it doesn't indicate that she ever will... so why the big deal made over it? Why did it even exist if it was only there to allow her to use a ridiculous, worthless spell on Isolda? IOW, it didn't need to be there at all and just created another unresolved mystery... and WHY was Mrs Jones killed? and how? and what made Morgana suddenly know 'where she was'? and what possible purpose what there in having Morgana's mother be dead after all that build up in going to see her? There was ENOUGH gloom & misery on the trip without adding to it and making the reader feel worse for no actual plot advancement... the LEAST the writer could have done was to offer that crumb to the reader instead of downing the entire center of the book as she did... and why was the main character so flippin' STUPID all the time? Especially by AGAIN getting stuck in a blizzard on a treacherous hillside while going after three lost sheep? I mean SERIOUSLY? How many times did she have to get caught in a killer storm on that hillside? It was nothing but a ploy to introduce a bit of magic that she would have had NO way to have learned but suddenly managed to be able to do? and WHY did all of the humans being manipulated & used by the wicked witch, Isolda, not REMEMBER what happened when it was obvious that they were being frightened into their behavior, not bewitched into it... ? and the repetition of information & statements? OMG, annoying... Hearing anyone referred to as "my wild one" will make me scream from now on... It is never explained HOW Morgana being able to speak would possibly have SAVED those cattle from going over the cliff if Cai's ability to speak didn't help keep them in line? So, how was it HER fault and why did he blame her when it was so clearly NOT? and what on earth made HIM think going to get the cattle down from the mountainside on a stormy afternoon was a smart move? and pray tell, HOW can someone read as well as Morgana did and still be UNABLE to write or spell? Really? You can read the words and know their meanings, but you can't write or spell them? Oh C'MON... and why didn't she ever attempt to communicate by writing prior to then? There were enough times when her communication would have changed everything ... and the most bewildering of all, if the evil witch just needed to OWN the property but didn't have to actually be married to Morgana's husband, then why didn't she just RUIN him with the cattle going over the hill and make him HAVE to sell to her? why offer him a loan to help him out, even if she planned to interfere and cause trouble for his new wife so he'd abandon her... Or, better still, why not just kill them in the stampede instead? Then the land would be up for sale without further ado... She managed to kill many others in bizarre, unexpectedly sudden ways, including his first wife, without casting suspicion upon herself... so why simply curse him with a lingering sickness that would take as long as it did and still allow his wife to learn about how to fight back from the old housekeeper who was clearly teaching her? Isolda knew Mrs. Jones was a 'hedge witch' and would recognize that Morgana was a witch with more power than she, as well as that Isolda was an evil witch... So, why let EITHER of them live long enough to have a shot at defeating her? Makes NO SENSE... and given that NO ONE had visited their remote farm OR her hometown, HOW did anyone know about all of their troubles without them telling anyone? Since her husband could NOT 'see the witch-walking Isolda Bowen', so HOW did he know what his wife was fighting or even needed to kill her? He'd been told that she was already dead, so he had no reason to know what was happening as he didn't even KNOW about 'witch walking'... So, when he tossed her the cursing stone with IB carved into it (with what tool, btw?, they were out in a blizzard), there was no reasonable explanation... and the worst of the worst? The last sentence... SERIOUSLY? Talk about a 1950's TV 'wrap up' with the most unbelievable CLICHES possible... She's able to speak suddenly? and exactly WHY did that 'miracle' come about? Because it was the last page? The loss of her voice was never sufficiently explained as her father simply 'disappeared', never to be seen again... There was NO 'moment of trauma' that would explain the sudden loss of her ability to speak nor was it ever explained how HE took her voice with him... So, it never made any sense that she was suddenly UNABLE to speak... She didn't just choose not to, she couldn't... Until the last line of the book? HOW did that happen? It would be fine to give her back her voice, but it MUST be explained... There must be something in the book that justifies it coming back... It left without explanation and returned the same way... I felt CHEATED... It was bad enough not to get any other explanations, but we needed at least ONE to be satisfied... Instead, it was a 'lazy ending' that just wrapped it all up with coincidences & knowledge not based on the plot... So, I was disappointed by the quick wrap up and silliness of Cai suddenly saving the day with the carved 'curse stone' that ultimately destroyed the evil witch, but when the last page had her suddenly speak her first word, I shut my kindle off in disgust... The only reason I'm still giving it a 3 is because there were some really GOOD parts of it too... The characters conveyed their feelings well... The love story angle was very well done and quite convincing... There were exciting scenes and a lot of interesting possibilities & big mysteries... The descriptions of everything were very well done... I did really like the characters and I was excited to discover the secrets of the well & the water, the contents & purpose of book of magic, what happened to her father & to her, and so on... so the basic premise was very good to 'hook the reader'... However, as stated above, we were never allowed to learn any answers to ANY of them... or figure out who the "grimoire" was and how it fit into the water of the well... or why... or why MORGANA was the 'one they were waiting for' to come to rule the well and to own the book... It was presented as all happenstance and never shown to be guided, so that didn't make ANY sense at all... HOW could all of those coincidences have 'just happened'? and if the evil witch, Isolda's, ancestors had once owned & controlled the well, as she'd claimed, then WHY and HOW did they lose control? In another chapter, it was supposed to have been built by CAI's ancestors, not the evil witch's... That made NO SENSE... Can you tell that I'm still angry about the promise of the book going unfulfilled? I expected MORE and the author cheated us of the promised explanations in favor of a clichéd wrap up... Not fair... That said, now that you won't expect to have ANY of your questions answered, perhaps you'll enjoy the book for its good points... It will grab you and make you care... but that's why I'm so annoyed at being let down... EDIT: The timeline of the book has a serious 'glitch' in it. The setting is the very early 1800's... Yet Morgana's father owned the book, Treasure Island?? Treasure Island wasn't published until 1883, after being in serial publications between 1881 & 1882... So HOW could that be? Poor editing, I'm afraid... )-;

I've always considered myself an easy reader. I can read a ketchup bottle label with the same rapt attention as a Grisham novel. And I know there are others out there like me. This book was great for people like me. The story didn't plod along, there weren't 1500 characters to try and remember ( Wheel of TIme anyone?) and best of all the story touches on the soft mushy parts of us without getting x rated or pretending that people don't have sex. There may be some literary downfalls but i was able to overlook them because the characters were lovable, the setting wasn't overly descriptive so i wasn't burdened with an unnecessary extra 80 pages, there was a natural flow to the telling and the chapters were divided so I didn't stay up till 4 am waiting for a page break. A winner for me.

I was under the impression that this was a continuing story across the series, but in fact it is a standalone novel. All the same, I thoroughly enjoyed it, characters and world are well developed and pulls in some interesting historical agricultural practices in Wales. The main storyline for the majority of the book is a love story, and the magic is low key, but this didn't detract at all from the beautiful prose, and the character development, you'll find you are quickly invested in Morgana's future and her relationship with her new husband. Characters are all distinct and bring something to the narrative. Would definitely recommend.

I do enjoy reading about witches and this novel has surprised me quite much. I felt all the way in wales and Found the characters well rounded and real.

The winter witch war leicht und schnell zu lesen. Der Schreibstil ist flüssig. Wirklich gepackt hat mich die Handlung jedoch nicht. Es fehlt mir an Spannung und Überraschungsmomenten. Es war alles sehr vorhersehbar und ich hätte mir etwas mehr erhofft.

I have so enjoyed reading this book, Paula has written well of magic and the witches life love it!

This was the 3rd Paula Brackston book I have read. I loved how she used Welsh folklore in the telling of this story. The use of old superstitions passed down through generations was a great addition. Towards the end it did have echoes of Harry Potter and The Chamber Of Secrets mixed with Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. Although that may sound cheesy it did not detract from the tale at all (and I do not mean it to sound cheesy). It was a great read and I could not put the book down. The author painted the characters and the Welsh countryside well in my head. It is a book of with witchcraft at its core, superstition, love, loyalty heroic deeds. I recommend this book.