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A review by saguaros
In the Company of Witches by Auralee Wallace
3.0
2.5 rounded up
another cozy fantasy I’ve seen recommended a fair bit and finally got around to reading as I drag myself out of this terrible reading slum I’ve been in since March. I will admit, I expected better. Why is it so hard to find these cozy stories—whether they be witchy, fantasy, mystery, women’s lit etc—that are also decently written???
Now, to be fair, I actually enjoyed the story and the set pieces of this. It’s not reinventing the wheel, or doing anything new or surprising. The elements all fairly basic: 2 aunts and a niece (and a reclusive uncle) live together in a big manor turned B&B, they are witches, from a long line of witches (“the Family Name women” is said several times). They all have their own little specialties—kitchen witch, garden witch, speak to ghosts witch, premonition witch. They live in a small town where their family has lived for generations. A murder happens. One of the aunts is suspected. The niece’s ghost speaking powers aren’t working due to her grief over her husband’s death. Story ensues. None of that is original and none of it is subverted. That’s fine! I actually like and enjoy all of those things always! I thought that the book being part mystery, part exploration of grief was a nice touch. I didn’t mind that there wasn’t any strict rules to their magic (some seem innate, some require spells etc). The characters weren’t the most amazing ever and they had cliché characteristics as well, but I didn’t mind too much. I can roll with all those things.
The main issue—and what had me almost rate this 2 stars—is the prose. The writing itself. I don’t know how else to describe it other than flat. It just felt flat the whole time. It’s not the worse prose ever, but it was deeply uninteresting, and it was hard to get into the story because of it. There were NO vibes. The story is set in Autumn. I never *felt* that it was. The MC is experiencing deep grief. I never felt that she did, etc. It’s dialogue heavy and thoroughly lacked texture. Which was frustrating because I wanted to know more about the story. But everything is just written as it happens, nothing more. I think the first person POV made it worse. I’m not someone who is against first person POV, but I do think that it’s much harder to pull off than many authors realise. In this case, it just highlighted how plain and lacking in colour the prose was, it felt almost amateurish. There were no real details to give a sense of time (a computer is mentioned ONCE, no one seems to have phones), place, culture, tradition.
Still, 3 stars because I wanted to know what was happening and I actually liked a lot of the set pieces. Unfortunately, all the vibes I got from it were sorely provided by my own imagination. I still will probably read the second book though, out of curiosity.
another cozy fantasy I’ve seen recommended a fair bit and finally got around to reading as I drag myself out of this terrible reading slum I’ve been in since March. I will admit, I expected better. Why is it so hard to find these cozy stories—whether they be witchy, fantasy, mystery, women’s lit etc—that are also decently written???
Now, to be fair, I actually enjoyed the story and the set pieces of this. It’s not reinventing the wheel, or doing anything new or surprising. The elements all fairly basic: 2 aunts and a niece (and a reclusive uncle) live together in a big manor turned B&B, they are witches, from a long line of witches (“the Family Name women” is said several times). They all have their own little specialties—kitchen witch, garden witch, speak to ghosts witch, premonition witch. They live in a small town where their family has lived for generations. A murder happens. One of the aunts is suspected. The niece’s ghost speaking powers aren’t working due to her grief over her husband’s death. Story ensues. None of that is original and none of it is subverted. That’s fine! I actually like and enjoy all of those things always! I thought that the book being part mystery, part exploration of grief was a nice touch. I didn’t mind that there wasn’t any strict rules to their magic (some seem innate, some require spells etc). The characters weren’t the most amazing ever and they had cliché characteristics as well, but I didn’t mind too much. I can roll with all those things.
The main issue—and what had me almost rate this 2 stars—is the prose. The writing itself. I don’t know how else to describe it other than flat. It just felt flat the whole time. It’s not the worse prose ever, but it was deeply uninteresting, and it was hard to get into the story because of it. There were NO vibes. The story is set in Autumn. I never *felt* that it was. The MC is experiencing deep grief. I never felt that she did, etc. It’s dialogue heavy and thoroughly lacked texture. Which was frustrating because I wanted to know more about the story. But everything is just written as it happens, nothing more. I think the first person POV made it worse. I’m not someone who is against first person POV, but I do think that it’s much harder to pull off than many authors realise. In this case, it just highlighted how plain and lacking in colour the prose was, it felt almost amateurish. There were no real details to give a sense of time (a computer is mentioned ONCE, no one seems to have phones), place, culture, tradition.
Still, 3 stars because I wanted to know what was happening and I actually liked a lot of the set pieces. Unfortunately, all the vibes I got from it were sorely provided by my own imagination. I still will probably read the second book though, out of curiosity.