Looking for revenge, a witch and a witch hunter fight for their lives.
Fritzi is one of the only survivors after her coven is attacked by a group of witch hunters and much of her family is burned at the stake.
She is determined not only to find the safety in the woods that her mother told her about, but find where they brought her younger cousin Liesel after the raid.
Otto is a witch hunter who has moved his way up through the ranks to be second in command. After leading a group to find his sister, who he claims is a witch, he ends up with Fritzi instead, after she burst in trying to save his sister from him.
Now Otto, who was relying on his sister to to help with a plan to bring down the hunters and the religion running their world, needs Fritzi's help.
After exchanging the promise to help each other, the two start to work together to take down the overpowered witch hunters and save the hundreds currently in prison because of the kommandant. Once they save the innocent people below the city, Fritzi, Otto and young Liesel are trying to find the Well, the source of a witches power and the one place they might be safe.
First thing I want to mention is there is a list of triggers are the beginning of this book, make sure to read that and choose if the book is meant for you based on those. Second is that though this book is 'young adult' there are definitely some moments that I would say are targeted for a slightly older audience, maybe more over 16 rather than 14.
I really liked this book, which has a bit of history mixed in with the fantasy elements. The story is based around the Trier Witch Trails in 1581. There are parts of the story that do line up with the actual history, and how the city itself was set up, mixed with Fritzi and her magic. I enjoyed the historical influence of the book, with the German mixed in and other elements of the time within the text.
When it came to the magic system, I enjoyed that each witch had a specialty when it came to magic and different ways they could help based on that. There was also a big mention of having a lot of the people who were captured never actually being a witch or magic user at all.
There is also a lot of questioning religion and government in this book, which I actually really enjoyed. Otto goes through the process of questioning if what he was told was right and how his actions impacted many people's lives. Fritzi has to re-learn what she has been taught about the witch hunters, and how evil they may actually be.
Lastly, this book has a lot of really good plot twists and the action between the magic and non-magic users was written really well. Overall, I very much enjoyed this book and its kind of new look at a historical event I didn't know much about before.
A 4/5 star read for me.
This book is scheduled to be published Oct 3, 2023.
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