#witch's child

[zhugeliangs]

'Some things cannot be forgiven.' 'Some things cannot be avenged.'

Julia Defiant (Witch’s Child #2), Catherine Egan, p.1

[crienselt]

Net Galley has a snippet of this book up and I am freaking out and I feel like I am in the only person the universe who is super excited for this book.

[zhugeliangs]

I believe I could tear down the world to save you, level cities and leave empires in ruins behind me—and I'll do it, if that's what it takes.

Julia Defiant (Witch’s Child #2), Catherine Egan, p.441

[zhugeliangs]

It's beautiful, but I don't care about beauty. The drumbeat at my center has summoned a storm, a howling wind within. It is spinning higher and higher, whipping itself into a frenzy, a terrible force gathering. The sun dips to touch the horizon and spills bloody across the water, like a murder.

Julia Defiant (Witch’s Child #2), Catherine Egan, p.441

[zhugeliangs]

I was afraid, and I was a fool, and I can forgive myself for that.

Julia Defiant (Witch’s Child #2), Catherine Egan, p.441

[booksbeyondimagining]

Julia Vanishes (Witch’s Child #1), by Catherine Egan

My Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2 out of 5 stars)

Synopsis:

Julia has the unusual ability to be…unseen. Not invisible, exactly. Just beyond most people’s senses. It’s a dangerous trait in a city that has banned all forms of magic and drowns witches in public Cleansings. But it’s a useful trait for a thief and a spy. And Julia has learned—crime pays. Her latest job is paying very well indeed. Julia is posing as a housemaid in the grand house of Mrs. Och, where an odd assortment of characters live and work: A disgraced professor who keeps forbidden books and sends her to fetch parcels containing bullets, spiders, and poison. An aristocratic houseguest who is locked in the basement each night. And a mysterious young woman with an infant son who is clearly hiding—though from what or whom? Worse, Julia has a creeping suspicion that there’s a connection between these people and the killer leaving a trail of bodies across the frozen city. The more she learns, the more she wants to be done with this unnatural job. To go back to the safety of her friends and fellow thieves. But Julia is entangled in a struggle between forces more powerful than she’d ever imagined. Escape will come at a terrible price. And even a girl who can vanish can’t walk away from her own worst deeds.  

My Review:

I had some good hopes for this book, but sadly they weren't to be found. I was immediately intrigued by this book based on the premise of Julia having a magical power and being a thief/spy in a world where magic is forbidden and wielders of it executed. But, unfortunately, it turned out it just was not written well enough to enjoy it, with my biggest problems being the world-building and the characters. To begin with the world-building felt very bare at first, with only a vague sense of what it actually wanted to be, and what kind of magic and attitude towards it existed there (I'm still a little unclear on what the differences between "folklorish" ways and witches are, exactly). Halfway through the book, some new terminology and creatures started appearing, with very little background to them or background that is explained briefly and moved on from very quickly. And they were strange creatures that seemed like they had traits from different animals just randomly combined for no specific reason and the characters, especially Julia, barely seemed to react to the fact that they existed at all in a world where anything remotely magical was abhorred. It was just a vague sort of world-building that felt incomplete at times and did not do enough to really help me immerse myself in the world of the story itself. Then there are the characters, who are two-dimensional, difficult to empathize with, and un-inspiring. I could not bring myself to care for Julia at all, for she began very self-centered and kind of oblivious to the world around her despite being "the best spy" in the city (as she says). She did go through a predictable self-transformation, but that did nothing to really make me feel anything towards her either. I was also very unimpressed with the other characters, none of whom really stood out in any exceptional way other than having distinct characteristics that seemed to define their entire selves for most of the novel, and none of whom were really well-rounded at all. There were a few other things I had issues with throughout the book, but not as major as those. One, for example, is how there were several scenes that made no sense in terms of how Julia transitioned to them, because she would just suddenly be at some place or walking somewhere, just for the sake of having her in a specific place at time to have something happen to her. It felt forced, with some of the things happening during those scenes being completely unnecessary to both the plot and character development. In fact I think there was a character introduced in one scene whose sole purpose was to reveal a tiny tidbit of information to her about another character, act skeazy, and then disappear from the plot altogether. Overall, this book just did not impress me and was rather a disappointment when it came to world-building and its characters. The writing was okay for the most part, keeping the pace of the book at a reasonable rate, but did not inspire much for the imagination. Not something I would really find myself recommending, sadly.

[crienselt]

The witches struggle, some of them, but there on the ledge with a row of soldiers behind them, there is nowhere to flee...They are hurled untidily into the water, clothes flapping, screaming or silent. The young witch just holds herself tight and falls. Like all of them, she sinks like a stone. The crowd roars, a deafening sound.

Catherine Egan, Julia Vanishes

[sstrangestplaces]

When they ask to see your gods your book of prayers show them lines drawn delicately with veins on the underside of a bird's wing tell them you believe in giant sycamores mottled and stark against a winter sky and in nights so frozen stars crack open spilling streams of molten ice to earth and tell them how you drink a holy wine of honeysuckle on a warm spring day and of the softness of your mother who never taught you death was life's reward but who believed in the earth and the sun and a million, million light years of being

J.L. Stanley