Two hundred years after the trials in Salem, Adelaide Thom ('Moth' from The Virgin Cure) has left her life in the sideshow to open a tea shop with another young woman who feels it's finally safe enough to describe herself as a witch: a former medical student and 'gardien de sorts' (keeper of spells), Eleanor St. So grating! I tried to stick with it, but am finally giving up after only 45 minutes into it.The beloved, bestselling author of The Birth House and The Virgin Cure is back with her most beguiling novel yet, luring us deep inside the lives of a trio of remarkable young women navigating the glitz and grotesqueries of Gilded-Age New York by any means possible, including witchcraft. While she tries to do different voices for the various characters, her efforts are not successful, especially for anyone with a higher voice. First and foremost, she has an intonation and delivery that are so repetitive and monotonous, I can only imagine them appropriate for an instruction manual. Her voice is annoying for several reasons. While it's unrealistic to expect that every narrator is a good as Cassandra Campbell or Shiromi Arserio, it's incredible to think that someone paid real money for Laurence Bouvard to read it. In any case, the performance seemed very amateurish. Unfortunately, it's impossible to leave a review without giving a rating for the overall quality and the story. I don't know if the story of this book is good or not the narration was so bad that I couldn't focus on the story.

Overall not my favourite book or performance but it wasn't bad by any means.Īwful narrator - annoying, monotonous intonation! The actor uses very high pitched voices for female characters which grates on the ear. The performance also really irritated me. Often the magic doesn't feel authentic to the book, but, rather, someone's impression on what Wicca should be. It does however feel like a lot of the spells and rituals are taken directly from Wiccan practices. There is a lot of allusion to Wicca and magic plays a strong role in the story. There isn't enough gray and ambiguous for us to interpret. The main characters are pro choice and the suffragette movement and the main bad guy is very anti that. All the main characters are women, all the bad characters are men. I do however have issue with books where that is constantly being pushed on you. The story is unashamedly feminist, which isn't a bad thing in itself. lots of different directions get set up in the beginning only to lead nowhere or be completely forgotten about.

The introduction to the characters and places is most of the story with most of the action and conflict only happening near the very end.

The Witches of New York by Ami McKay