A Circle of Uncommon Witches
By Paige Crutcher
Urban Fantasy, Romance
Audiobook, Paperback & eBook, 320 Pages
February 25, 2025 by St. Martin's Griffin
Summary
"A mind-bending, heart-wrenching adventure to unravel a curse as intricate as any lacework. Unforgettable!" - Ava Morgyn, author of The Bane Witch
A witch generationally cursed to never find true love sets out to break the spell cast on her family, and must team up with the last person who wants to help her – the witch who set the curse in the first place.
Doreen MacKinnon is doomed to die of a broken heart - if she can’t break the centuries old curse placed on her family.
Three hundred years ago, Ambrose MacDonald, a powerful male witch, fell in love with a MacKinnon. And when the MacKinnon witches forbade him from seeing his love, by secretly hiding her away, he retaliated by cursing the family and its future generations to never find love. But it wasn’t without a cost. Now, Ambrose is imprisoned by those same witches, trapped in a tempest and doomed to outlive everyone he has ever loved.
But Doreen isn’t like the other MacKinnon witches. As the 13th generation of the MacKinnon line, Doreen is one of the most powerful witches in centuries… and one of the loneliest. So when she discovers where Ambrose has been trapped, she releases him to help her break the curse, once and for all. Ambrose agrees to help, but with his own motive: vengeance. He plans to use her as bait to enact his revenge on her family.
Together, they enter a series of trials, which take them to a castle in Scotland, off a cliff, and into a world beyond their wildest dreams. As they work together, sparks start to fly, but soon Doreen must choose how far she is willing to go to break the curse, and what she's willing to sacrifice.
Paige Crutcher's A Circle of Uncommon Witches is a story of adventure, romance, and destiny, that asks: is true love worth the cost?
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My Review
A CIRCLE OF UNCOMMON WITCHES is about a woman who is within a year of facing her family's curse with a death sentence and does everything in her power to break it. It's about a long line of family witches, her best-friend cousin, and the man at the center of the curse who she must save. Full of fantastical and otherworldly elements, friendship, and romance ideal for romantasy fans.
I thought this was a pretty fun story from the first page. It's well written with unique, interesting characters who are relatable and likable. Doreen is such a fabulous character! I loved living in her head and figuring things out as she did. I loved her loyalty, resilience and outright fight to not give in to the status quo. I especially loved her friendship with her cousin and then the line of women who she is so strongly connected to. Ambrose is an interesting character. Wise and old and strong. I did think he came across younger than he was, but it still worked. I liked that all the characters had to help each other to make things work and that it wasn't easy. I also liked how well the author weaved through different themes and how the plot meandered and then resolved. I thought it was very well done in an unbelievably believable way.
There were a few things that could have been developed more or handled differently. One of my pet peeves is when a character isn't told important things by her parent or guardian, which occurs in this story. The author resolved this in some ways, but not in others. I also didn't like the inconsistency between the individuals who did the torturing and then supposedly who they were by the end of the story. Then there was the almost insta-love dynamic. This is a bit of an enemies-to-lovers trope, but it jumped from that to the other without much of a transfer.
In the end, was it what I wished for? This was an entertaining story for witch fans. There were a few places that could have been developed better, but great characters, an interesting plot, and overall sweet romance made for an overall enjoyable read.
Content: Suggestive references and some swearing. Some grotesque characters and situations and some torture.
Source: I received a complimentary copy from the publisher through NetGalley, which did not require a positive review. All opinions are my own.
Have you read any books recently with witches? Does this sound like a book you'd enjoy?
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