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A review by coyotesprite
Dark Witch by Nora Roberts
2.0
Between Ireland, horses and witches this should have been amazing to me but it just wasn't. It was kind of sloppy in my opinion.
I can narrow my issues down to 3 things:
1. Pacing issues:
-At the beginning of a paragraph Iona would be talking about her plans to go somewhere and in the next sentence she would be halfway down the road, still don't know whether she's walking or driving.
-It's 3rd person but the POV and dialogue jump around so much I didn't know who was speaking or who they were speaking to.
- One minute we are riding horses and the next minute we are doing a random bit of magic for "practice" and talking about lessons but we never actually see or follow along with these lessons.
2. Zero character background:
-I don't know how old anyone is and there is no inner monologue for any of our characters (aside from Iona) whatsoever.
-Iona in particular just says 90% of her inner monologue out loud, sometimes both in the same sentence.
-There was a scene where Iona was talking about this emotional e-mail she sent her "Nan" but the story didn't even take 2 sentences to flesh out this scene for us, we just listen to Iona talk about something she apparently already did.
3. Plot:
-We jump into this story head first with Iona already come to Ireland and we are just told everything about everyone being descendants of witches and somehow they all know they have this power and they've already found each other. We know Iona has a grandmother she is close to but there's really not much flashback or explanation about their relationship. We get one bit at the beginning of the book that is a flashback to the original Dark Witch and her enemy, Cabhan. After this the entire story is focused on some impending battle somehow everyone knows about except us.
-The characters keep talking about "what's coming" and what they "must face" so we just know there is a big bad looming but we don't really know why he wants power or what he is going to do. Then there is a sudden spell to fix everything that Branna comes up with (we don't get any inner monologue on this either) and then they're off into battle before you know it.
I own all 3 of these books so I will be finishing them at some point. I didn't hate the story I just wish it had drawn me in more than it did.
I can narrow my issues down to 3 things:
1. Pacing issues:
-At the beginning of a paragraph Iona would be talking about her plans to go somewhere and in the next sentence she would be halfway down the road, still don't know whether she's walking or driving.
-It's 3rd person but the POV and dialogue jump around so much I didn't know who was speaking or who they were speaking to.
- One minute we are riding horses and the next minute we are doing a random bit of magic for "practice" and talking about lessons but we never actually see or follow along with these lessons.
2. Zero character background:
-I don't know how old anyone is and there is no inner monologue for any of our characters (aside from Iona) whatsoever.
-Iona in particular just says 90% of her inner monologue out loud, sometimes both in the same sentence.
-There was a scene where Iona was talking about this emotional e-mail she sent her "Nan" but the story didn't even take 2 sentences to flesh out this scene for us, we just listen to Iona talk about something she apparently already did.
3. Plot:
-We jump into this story head first with Iona already come to Ireland and we are just told everything about everyone being descendants of witches and somehow they all know they have this power and they've already found each other. We know Iona has a grandmother she is close to but there's really not much flashback or explanation about their relationship. We get one bit at the beginning of the book that is a flashback to the original Dark Witch and her enemy, Cabhan. After this the entire story is focused on some impending battle somehow everyone knows about except us.
-The characters keep talking about "what's coming" and what they "must face" so we just know there is a big bad looming but we don't really know why he wants power or what he is going to do. Then there is a sudden spell to fix everything that Branna comes up with (we don't get any inner monologue on this either) and then they're off into battle before you know it.
I own all 3 of these books so I will be finishing them at some point. I didn't hate the story I just wish it had drawn me in more than it did.