TITLE: Always A Witch
SERIES: Witch #2
AUTHOR: Carolyn MacCullough
PUBLICATION DATE: August 1, 2011
PUBLISHER: Clarion Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing
PAGES: 276 pages
FORMAT: Ebook
SOURCE: Borrowed
RATING: 5 stars
Whoa. Just wow, I really wasn’t expecting that ending. It came flying up out of nowhere and hit me smack in the face. It was completely brilliant though. Since I adored everything about Once A Witch, it really is not surprise that I loved this one as well. Carolyn MacCullough took everything I loved about Once A Witch and managed to improve upon it when writing this book. It’s witty, it’s funny, it still has that great Tamsin/Gabriel relationship. The sarcasm is cut down a bit, but it is still great.
This novel pics up not too far after the last one left off and it follows Tamsin in an adventure in the past. Her grandmother can no longer see a future for their family, so her only real option is to follow Alistair into the past and prevent him from warning the Knights. Deciding it is best to do this alone, she uses the Domani to travel back 1887 with no real plan beyond warning her ancestors and finding Alistair. She ends up taking a position as a lady’s maid for the Knight family to watch for Alistair since she can’t find anyone with knowledge of the Greene family. Complications arise, ensue, and are overcome.
I really loved this novel. Love, love LOVE it.
I loved Tamsin going off on her own (though it was stupid) and blindly charging off to save her family. I love that it doesn’t turn out perfect when she arrives. Too many novels have the heroine arrive and it just all magically falls into place, like the first person she asks knows where to find her family and they believe her and fix it and then cue the happily ever after. No, Tamsin arrives and cannot find anyone that has even heard of her family. She wonders around cluelessly until a man offers her a job as a lady’s maid for the Knight family. Then when she finally finds her family, they don’t believe her. I truly loved that. Call me cruel, but I like seeing the heroine (or hero) struggle to get what they want/need.
I was a bit sad when she left without Gabriel because I love him and I want as much of him in the novel as possible. He finally shows up in 1887 a little over halfway through the book, so those of you fearing (like me), that you won’t get enough of him here, let me put your mind at easy. You get plenty of the signature Tamsin/Gabriel banter.
I have to give it to Carolyn for catching me off guard because I didn’t see that ending coming at all. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting but it certainly wasn’t****SPOILER****Tamsin giving up her powers to protect the Domani.****END SPOILER**** Even though I didn’t expect it, it was perfect. It seamlessly tied the whole story together. It makes it completely understandable why Grandma forced everyone to hide Tam’s powers from her. It really left me speechless.
I also loved that this series is just a 2 part set. It is very refreshing to see a short series in a world where it seems like every story is continued to like 15 volumes. Oh and for those of you wondering, this series had no love triangle. 🙂
Bows & Bullets Reviews 