A review by beckyyreadss
Weyward by Emilia Hart

challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This is my book club’s choice for September. I hadn’t heard anything about this book before it was the choice for September, I went into this book completely blind. I normally don’t go for these sorts of books, so I was excited and nervous to dive right in.  

This book has three points of view, from three different woman in three different centuries. The first one is Kate, and she is in 2019 in London, she is abandoning everything for Cumbria and the Weyward Cottage that she inherited from her great-aunt. There, a secret lurks in the bones of the house, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century. The second point of view is Violet, and she is in 1942, she is more interested in collecting insects and climbing trees than in becoming a proper young lady. Until a chain of shocking events changes her life forever. The last point of view is Altha, and she is in 1619, she is on trial for witchcraft, accused of killing a local man. Known for her uncanny connection with nature and animals, she is a threat that must be eliminated. But the Weyward women belong to the wild. And they cannot be tamed. Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.  

I liked the aspect that all the women are somehow linked like between generations and that the history and the stories were getting past down. I liked the epilogue as well and would have preferred for the whole book to be like the epilogue. I liked that Altha and Violet was too ahead of their times like if they were born in this generation, they would survive. Each of the three women had each of their own personalities, it didn’t feel like one character wasn’t as important as the other. The plot was an interesting concept, and I liked how the story was divided by three and from the different point of views rather than a diary or something like that. 

I would have loved for this to be like spiritually linked, like ghost messages and things between the three girls. Besides the females in the books, everyone else was horrible. The men in this book really deserved hell besides Graham, though he took a while to grow on me, but every single of these men was horrible and just made me so angry. It sort of shows how we haven’t moved on as a society – with Altha, it was about weird women being accused of witchcraft, with Violet, it was about the fact that she got raped and must marry her rapist because it had to be proper otherwise she had a child out of wedlock. Then Kate was in an abusing relationship and people were still judging her for having a child without being married like this was 2019 surely people need to get over it.  

I kept going back and forth between 4 and 3 stars on this one but as I wrote this review, I realize it was more of 3 stars than 4 stars, but I might dip into Emilia’s work again but not any time soon.  
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