Truthwitch (The Witchlands, 1)

Favorite Quote: "If our paths cross again, make no mistake: I will kill you." "No, you won't," she whispered as the door clicked shut. I was pretty hyped up about this one and I'm quite happy to say it met all my expectations and then blew them away. Truthwitch grabbed hold and just did not let go. I never wanted to stop reading it. The book was thrilling, quite fast paced, and had a mix of so many elements that I love. Where to start. So since it's in the title I suppose I'll begin with the "magic" type element of the story. The magic in this book is called "witchery". There are multiple types, poison, fire, water, iron, truth, thread, blood, curse, etc. I found this quite interesting as it had more than just the typical elements involved. A bloodwitch could control the blood running in your veins, a threadwitch can see your emotions threads that they could see coming out of you. Different colors meaning different emotions. Tidewitches seem pretty self explanatory. What was also interesting was it wasn't complete control of a whole element. If you controlled water maybe you could only influence the tide, or maybe you could only heal the fluids in a body. With air maybe you control air currents but not the air people breathe in their lungs or create storms. I found the witchery element fascinating and well thought out. As more and more types of witchery were introduced I was pulled further in. I want to know more and more. The world itself (including the witchery) was incredible. The way Susan wrote I could really envision the world and the different places that we got to visit. I was surprised by how many places were involved without making the book feel like it had too much going on. Everything flowed so smoothly and the reasons for going or leaving a place all made sense to the plot. Susan's writing is quite descriptive and really made you feel like you were right there with the characters. Oh the characters. We had a rather large cast but I rather like that myself. The group was rich with different personalities and different allegiances. I actually found myself loving every character. This was multi POV so we got to follow Safi, Iseult, Merrick, and Aeduan. Safi was our books namesake, the truthwitch. I wasn't sure I would like Safi at the beginning. I figured she would be the reckless, probably stupid and yet somehow anyone and everyone would fall in love with her typical heroine. Thankfully I was quite mistaken. She is very down to earth and works towards her flaws. She is beyond loyal and was quite refreshing. I know that Susan was going for the strong friendship element along with the romance element and I love love love that. Her friendship with her threadsister (which I may start calling my bestie that now) was beautiful to read. Iseult, her resident threadsister was also fun to follow. She is physically strong and tries to be emotionless when she is so full of emotion. She had some serious struggles and I can't wait to see more inside her mind. I'm also quite glad we got to see the two main male characters thought processes as well. This made the romance side of things more interesting because it gave Merrick a huge personality and a lot of life. He was a strong male lead and even when I wanted to throttle him, I still rooted for him. Also seeing Aeduan, the closest to a villain we got to see was also very interesting. He had dark thoughts but still seemed to do whatever he needed for his own goals. He is also quite conflicted and made for a very three dimensional villain. Along the lines of the romance aspect I am QUITE happy with how this went. It wasn't BAM INSTALOVE OMG LET'S BE TOGETHER FOREVARRR. Yes they had a sizzling attraction but from there Safi and Merrick had a lot of ups and downs. For a good portion of the book I wasn't sure we'd even get a kiss from all that tension and having different goals and ways of achieving those goals. They were definitely mad at each other more than cuddling up to each other. Also was there a couple hints of possible Aeduan/Iseult? WANT WANT WANT. I certainly hope so. Hahaha my boyfriend just asked if I was writing a book review or a book so I'll wrap this up. The plot was FANTASTIC. I love it when there are so many twists and turns and not knowing who is involved with what. I couldn't see what was coming next and I LOVE THAT SO MUCH. I know this is a four part series and I need more post haste. I need it like we need air to breathe. Unfortunately I think I have quite a while to wait.

Weasels piss on you if you don't read this book. Just kidding. But wow! This has been the first book of this year that I've really flipped out about. Honestly, it didn't look all that interesting to me at first, and I had other, more anticipated reads that I was looking forward to. However this book has bewitched me, body and soul, and I love, I love, I love it. What I Loved: You ready for this long ass list?? (It's a little spoilery) Women: Holla! I mean, for real. This books was balls-to-the-wall full of capable female characters - some good, some bad, some I haven't figured out yet. They were messy and complicated and flawed and resourceful and smart and dangerous and my list could go on for days. I also felt like our two main protagonists - Safi and Iseult - underwent definitive transformations in book one. In other words, the characters at the beginning of the book were different than the characters at the end - and that's a good thing! They changed. They grew. The world around them affected change within them, and they in turn, affected change in the world around them. Friendship FTW!: I have been getting a bit tired of the girls vs girls, women vs women tropes that seem to permeate YA books at times. Girl meets another girl and immediately there is distrust, jealousy, suspicion, etc. But lately I've been getting my hands on books that celebrate female friendships and the strengths that women can derive from such relationships. (Uprooted by Naomi Novik is another recent find). I loved, loved, loved that this novel revolves around the friendship between Safi and Iseult. Of course there are other things happening - romances brewing, kingdoms falling, wars breaking – but the relationship between these two girls is front and center always. I am in love with these characters. Romance: What is fantasy without a little romance, hmm? Another trope I find to be a turn off is insta-love, and this happens a lot in YA novels. But the romance between Safi and Merik hit all the right notes for me. And it was a nice, slow burn with lots of beautiful, pent up tension (THAT dance!). I even loved that only one steamy make-out session occurred before Safi and Merik were separated at the end of the book. And I also loved how love (or lust) seemed to amplify a character’s witchery. Like how Merik’s wind witchery kept getting triggered by his lust for Safi. I felt like there were several tongue-in-cheek double entendres in those situations and I adored them. World Building Info: I think there are some people who would disagree, but I loved the way relevant information was dispersed in Truthwitch. We are kind of just dropped into this world and we learn how it works as we go. There’s no glossary or prologue or long expositional inner dialogue that sets up the magic system or the geo-political system of this world. We literally learn as we go with little bits of information dropped here and there in a very nice, relevant way without it ever feeling like a pace-destroying info dump session. We learn things as we need to learn them and that’s it. I loved it. There are still things that we don’t know. Things we can only guess and conjecture about. Things that will be revealed in the next book perhaps, or later. I’m fine with it. Hell, I loved it. I love trying to figure things out. I love having amazing facts and tidbits handed to me over the course of a book. All the different kinds of witchery? I was constantly surprised about certain character’s powers and what they were capable of. The magic runs deep, and we’ve only begun to scratch the surface, which just makes me pine even harder for the next book. Magic: I love magic systems. I love reading about them in fantasy novels, marveling at their careful care and cultivation. This system was completely unique to me. I loved that it was based off the four basic elements – Fire, Earth, Water, Air – as well as other elements I found interesting and surprising. Within each of these elements are sub-elements and unique powers as well. It seems like there are never ending possibilities, which is pretty exciting when it comes to characters and world building. I’m looking forward to what we will find in the future. And who the hell is that thrice-damned puppeteer??? What I Didn’t Love: World Building Info: I do this a lot. Say I love something and then turn right back around and say I didn’t love it. You’ll get use to me. While I did love the way this was handled, I found myself wishing for maybe a glossary of some sort at the end of the book. Something I could reference and help keep certain things – like witcheries – straight. Like, maybe even just a character list with the elements of each one’s witchery notated. Perhaps that would have given info away prematurely and taken away from the reading experience. I don’t know. It’s just something I wished for several times throughout. POV Switches The book is mainly told through the close POV’s of four main characters – Safi, Iseult, Merik, and Aeduen. I don’t mind switching between POV’s, but the fact that the switches would happen within the chapters – sometimes with as many as three separate POV’s occurring within one chapter – would cause me to get pulled out of the story at times. Just when I was settling into one character, I would be shuttled over to another one. I would have liked to have seen longer character excerpts, maybe even a whole chapters, rather than bouncing back and forth so much in such a short period of time. Those are the only dislikes that come to mind as I write this review. Not many at all and even the ones I’ve mentioned aren’t enough to make me gripe or cancel out all the freaking awesome goodness that is contained within this novel. This is my first Susan Dennard book and that girl is a born storyteller. I’m anxiously awaiting more.

I'm genuinely surprised to be giving this such a high rating. I nearly didn't buy Truthwitch. In all honesty I thought that I wasn't going to like this but I thought, hey ho, I want to read more witchy books and where better to start than this one that everyone seems to enjoy. I hate to add to the hype but this novel was just fantastic. I haven't heard the best things about Susan Dennard's 'Something Strange and Deadly' series, so I wasn't sure what to expect from Truthwitch , but Dennard really blew it out of the water (pun not intended). Her writing was great, and I feel like she really flourished when writing about the world and how it responded to magic - good and bad. I liked the magic system, though we don't learn a lot about how it works. I liked that using magic seeped the energy of a witch, and I really loved the different kinds of witches, which was something I actually thought I was going to dislike. The Origin Wells are interesting, and I hope we learn a little about how they affect the world in the next few instalments in the series. The characters in this were actually very refreshing. Especially the women. They were all so complex and badass, and there wasn't a single love triangle in sight! I'm so pleased! The main female characters weren't telling us that they were kick-arse then being continuously saved by the men, they were being kick-arse. They all worked as a team, as equals, and I just revelled in it. I really enjoyed the different personalities and cultures that we were introduced to. The female friendships are top notch, even the male friendships, which I honestly haven't seen a lot of in YA either, were nice to read about. Also the names were great. Slightly off topic but Iseult is one of my favourite names ever. Then there's the story itself, which was so freaking entertaining. Every time I sat down to read this I flew through it, devouring each page. This story is so fast-paced. Even with their journey across the sea and then across a continent it never seemed to slow right down, like novels of this sort usually do. It was also nice to see all of the witch types introduced without getting an info dump and while showcasing their powers in scenes that were actually relevant to the story's events. I'm curious to know more about the rarer types of witch (truthwitch, bloodwitch, voidwitch, etc.) and why they're considered so valuable. Since this is the first in a four (I think) book series there's a lot of questions left unanswered, but it just makes me all the more excited for the next book. Truthwitch was honestly just such a lovely surprise. The only thing that swayed me to buy this was that some big fantasy authors were giving it five stars, so even though I was completely sceptical I caved and bought into the hype, and I'm so glad I did. One of the easiest five star ratings I've ever given

Amei do começo ao fim. Personagens muito bem escritos, cenários de tirar o fôlego e uma história épica e original. 5/5 ⭐️ because this book was everything and more, amazingly written, beautiful characters, strong females and friendships GOALS. Everyone need to read this book.

"Epic Friendship" is how Ms. Dennard described her book; that, and the fact that she succeeds in the portrayal, make this book really brilliant. Two young women are bonded strongly by a love everyone who's ever had a tight best friend knows and they won't let anything get in the way of that. Both are fully fleshed out, as are the secondary characters, and wonderfully, the world they reside in that is made up of not one, but several interesting and unique cultures.

Strong female leads who kick ass and rule the whole awesomeness thing going on are my favourites. Strong female leads who are best friends and kick ass together are even better. Give me more of this in YA fantasy, please! I enjoyed Truthwitch immensely. I’ve had it on my TBR for almost a year and a half, and I would keep passing it on the bookshelf, each time contemplating whether to pick it up, but never actually doing so. I honestly don’t know why I put off reading Truthwitch for so long, for it was just what I love: a lovely high fantasy story filled with a unique magic system, brilliant characters, complicated webs of plots and schemes, and a vivid, intricate plot that you can’t help but be hooked onto. For the first 150 pages or so, I was a little lost, because the introduction to the world was a little confusing. I was scrambling to get all the countries, histories and witcheries straight in my head. The story also takes some time to kick in for real, but if you can power through the beginning, you will most certainly fall in love with the rest of it. Safi and Isuelt, to keep it short, are a freaking brilliant team. Their friendship is heartwarming, and I love how they put each other above everyone and everything else. Safi would always choose Isuelt when it came between Isuelt and Merik. It’s not often I see such friendships… and I have to say seeing more of it would be AMAZING. Let’s have a petition for less romance and insta-love in books while having more of other kinds of relationships, because romantic love isn’t the only kind of love. That being said, I also have to make it known that I have nothing against romance in books, and romance done right makes me ship ships with a vengeance unparalleled. You just have to have a right blend of everything. And Susan Dennard does nicely. Safi and Merik have this spark that grows on you. In the start, I was hesitant about the almost instant attraction, but like I said, it grew on me. Maybe because I was half in love with Merik already? Merik Nihar, Prince of Nubrevna, windwitch, and Admiral of the Jana, was a person easy to fall in love with. I don’t know, but I was sort of getting Nikolai Lantsov vibes from him, since he’s a clever prince second in line for a throne in a country suffering from a war and sails the seas? (Not that he’d ever be as good as Nikolai, because Nikolai is the epitome of “swoon-worthy male protagonist”, and I would die for him). Apart from that, his devotion to his people, and putting his duty before Safi were what I loved most about him. And Aedun, dear god, we didn’t see much of him at all, but he’s already probably my favourite? That Bloodwitch is a cinnamon roll deep inside, and I assure you, if that doesn’t come to pass, I will accept defeat and refrain from making assumptions again (but only because I know it’s true). Whatever happens though, I don’t think I can hate him at all! Safi and Isuelt are complete opposites. Safi is headstrong and quick to jump into anything without another thought. She’s fiery and brave, and loves as easily as she laughs. Isuelt on the other hand, is more held-back and quiet. She keeps a hold on her emotions and thinks everything through before deciding on a course of action. She’s extremely clever, but finds it hard to trust other people. They both complement each other in every possible way, however different they are. The Witchlands are not lacking in terms of diversity or variety. Each country had it’s own races, histories and agendas! This makes for a very colourful and vibrant setting, and keeps you wanting to go back to learn everything about the world. I cannot wait to read Windwitch, and continue with the rest of the series! Fingers crossed that I’ll love the rest as much as I loved this one!

Et on arrive au bout avec une seule envie - lire le suivant ! Amateurs de pouvoirs magiques, histoires d’amour et d’amitié dans des mondes « qui n’existent pas », n’hésitez plus ! Lisez !