geofrog 's review for:

Waking the Witch by Kelley Armstrong

3.0

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This is the eleventh book in the Women of the Otherworld series, and the first book to be narrated by Savannah Levine, a character introduced in the second book of the series. This is the first book in a trilogy of books narrated by Savannah that will act as a closing trilogy to the book series. At twenty-one, Savannah Levine (orphaned daughter of a notorious dark witch and an equally notorious cutthroat sorcerer) considers herself a full-fledged member of the otherworld. The once rebellious teen has grown into a six-foot-tall, motorcycle-riding jaw-dropper, with an impressive knowledge of and ability to perform spells. The only problem is, she's having a hard time convincing her adoptive parents, Paige and Lucas, to take her seriously as an adult. She's working as the research assistant at the detective agency they founded, and when they take off on a romantic vacation alone, leaving her in charge, Savannah finds herself itching for a case to call her own. Suddenly, Savannah gets the chance she's been waiting for: Recruited by another supernatural detective, she travels to Columbus, Washington, a small, dying town. Two troubled young women have been found in an abandoned warehouse, murdered. Now a third woman's dead, and on closer inspection small details point to darker forces at play. Savannah feels certain she can handle the case, but with signs of supernatural activity appearing at every turn, things quickly become more serious, and far more dangerous, than she realizes. Out of all the books in the series, this final trilogy were the books I was most excited to read, mostly because it feels like everything was building up to this. Savannah’s character was introduced in the second book and slowly grew throughout the book series, and I was excited when I heard that the final three books in the series were narrated by her character. I loved seeing Savannah as a young woman and learning how she has grown into herself and her power.Over the course of the series, we’ve watched Savannah grow up and one of the things readers familiar with the Otherworld series will know is that she’s made lots of mistakes as teenagers growing up do. With Savannah’s background, that’s not surprising. Her mother was killed when she was young. She never really knew her father and with the exception of her half-brother Sean, her father’s family refuses to acknowledge her despite the fact that she has their clan’s very distinctive blue eyes. Because of her mother’s reputation, Savannah has never been liked amongst other witches and Paige lost her standing within the Coven because of Savannah. To say that Savannah has underlying guilt issues is an understatement. She usually bears it well but it manifests in other ways. One of them is the strong desire to prove herself worthy of the right to exist, let alone deserving of the love and trust other people hold for her. I’ve always liked Savannah. I’m aware she can be easily construed as that precocious, overpowered child who grows up into a sassy woman who’s all attitude with nothing to back it up. The truth, however, is that Savannah can back it up. Witches and sorcerers are traditional enemies in the Otherworld and can’t stand each other. Someone of her mixed parentage is pretty much unheard of, so her power potential is very high. She’s not all good like Paige and Lucas, but she’s not all bad like her mother either. Her attitude is tempered by a lot of smarts and pragmatic competence. From the first chapter I was interested and I read through it in a few days because I could hardly put it down. I was invested in Savannah immediately and several of the other characters, including Kayla, the daughter of one of the murder victims, who takes a central role throughout the novel and acts as an interesting character foil to Savannah herself. Waking The Witch is an imaginative blend of the fantasy and detective genres. The plot moves along at a brisk pace, throwing a good number of twists and tragedies at Savannah, who becomes a more likeable character as the book goes on and she seems to warm up to everyday humans. I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get more of the witch hunter subplot since that’s definitely a new revelation and something that alters the playing field. As for the actual plot, I thought it seemed more like this was a set-up for future books. I don’t have any complaints about that aspect of it since this is such a long-running series and the first in the closing trilogy, but I was far more interested in the witch hunter angle than anything else happening. I’m not usually a huge fan of the couples in this series, but I liked the potential of Savannah and Adam together. I liked Savannah’s self-awareness of their relationship’s evolution. First, she knew she needed to be older before he’d take her seriously as a potential love interest. Then, she knew that no decent grown man would look at a teenager that way so she knew she needed to wait longer. She thought hitting 21 would be that magic number but then she realized Adam sees her as a coworker and friend, and that there was a strong possibility that this was all she’d ever be. But even as she’s resigned herself to this fact, she’s still in love with him. When she goes on a date with another date, even though she likes that man, she still compares him to Adam. She likes sex but she prefers not having the complications of a relationship to go with it and I can only infer that this is because of Adam. I really hope this gets addressed in future books. As part of a long-running series, there are significant points in the book that will mean much more to fans than to casual readers, but for the most part the story is self-contained. A few plot threads are left dangling at the end to inform the next chapter in Savannah’s story and intrigue Armstrong’s loyal readers. Overall, I liked this book. It wasn’t the strongest book in the series, but it wasn’t the weakest either. This book does a good job at setting-up the beginning of the final three books in the series.