A review by debussy
The Witch Haven by Sasha Peyton Smith

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Sasha Peyton Smith's debut is an absorbing awakening of magic. It has magic schools, magic clubs, magic boxing fights, magic boys, and magic feuds that will leave readers breathless. 
 
We start with Frances Hallowell, a seventeen-year-old seamstress, who is fresh with grief over her murdered brother. When she's attacked late at night by her shop's owner, her scissors inexplicably fly across the room and into his neck, killing him. In the morning, the witches arrive, whisking her out of a police investigation and into Haxahaven--a tuberculosis sanitarium on the outside, but a magical school for girls on the inside. So begins Frances's instruction, but of course nothing is quite right. Instead of learning the magic the girls crave, Haxahaven is focused on small magic. Domestic magic. Frances yearns for more--magic that can help her make a better world. Magic that can help her solve her brother's murder. 
 
This magic is delivered via Finn, an errand boy for a magic gentlemen's club in New York City. Frances and her friends learn the more serious magic from him, hoping to become strong enough to resurrect the soul of Frances's brother so he can tell them who killed him. All the while more boys are found washed up in the river, leading Frances to suspect a serial killer is on the loose. As she dives deeper into the mystery, she runs into long-standing feuds, racing against the people who would control her future and take her power for themselves. 
 
The Witch Haven has a fresh look on magic, a delightfully eerie 1910s New York setting, and an absorbing mystery. The twists on how magic would be used by women and by men--and the conflict it would cause between them--was reminiscent of The Once and Future Witches, and the magical school was so fully realized as a place that is at once a saving grace and a prison in its own right, trapping girls in the concept of what keeps women safe in a world unconcerned with their safety. I was thoroughly obsessed with this book, and I can't wait to see what the sequel brings. 
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