I am so excited to get a chance to be a part of this book tour hosted by TBRandBeyondTours . Thank you to the publisher for an advanced copy of this book so that I could participate in this book tour.  Make sure you check out the rest of the posts that are a part of this tour by looking at the schedule for the tour found here. 

Author Information

Hannah West is the author of young adult books including The Nissera Chronicles series and The Bitterwine Oath. ​She’s been writing fantasy since kindergarten, when she penned her first tale about a princess who ran away and lived at the top of a flagpole with two loaves of bread. But it wasn’t until she studied abroad in Orléans, France during college that the premise for her first novel materialized. The fairy tale castles, the snowy winter days, and a Disney princess pencil that arrived in a care package from her parents provided the inspiration that allowed her to wrangle all her untold and unfinished stories into a novel. 

Hannah currently lives in the Dallas area with her husband and their two rambunctious rescue dogs. 

You can find Hannah west at:

Website ~ Twitter ~ Instagram ~ Goodreads

Book Description

Genre: Young Adult Mystery

Publishing Date: December 1, 2020

Synopsis:

San Solano, Texas is a quaint town known for its charm, hospitality, and history of murder. Twice now, twelve men have been brutally killed, and no one knows who did it. A shadowy witch? A copy-cat killer? Or a man-hating murderess? Eighteen-year-old Natalie Colter is sure that the rumors about her great-great-grandmother’s cult of wronged women are just gossip, but that doesn’t stop the true crime writers and dark tourism bloggers from capitalizing on the town’s reputation. It’s an urban legend that’s hard to ignore, and it gets harder when Nat learns that the sisterhood is real, and magical. And they want her to join.

Every fifty years, a cult claims twelve men to murder in a small Texas town. Can one girl end the cycle of violence – and save the boy who broke her heart?

The more Nat learns of the Wardens’ supernatural history, the more she wonders about the real culprits behind the town’s ritualistic murders. Are the Wardens protecting San Solano from even darker forces? As the anniversary of the murders draws near, the town grows restless. Residents start getting “claimed” as this year’s planned victims, including Levi Langford, the boy whose kiss haunted Nat for a year.

Nat knows that no one is safe. Can she and the sisterhood stop the true evil from claiming their town?

You can get this book at:

Goodreads ~Amazon ~ Barnes and Noble ~ Book Depository ~ Indigo ~ IndieBound

Book Review

Thoughts and Themes: This book takes off to a slow start but it picks up about 100 pages in and I really liked the slow start. I liked the amount of time that was taken in order to introduce characters and the back story to the plot. I really enjoyed the through description of the past and how that past plays into the present time story. Usually by the time that I am half way through the book I know enough that I can write a review but this time I didn’t know enough to form an opinion either way. I was happy that as you read on you find out more information and not everything is revealed all at once.

The action scenes in this book are great and I really love how they pick up the pace of the book. I like how one minute its all action and then there’s calm. I think the pacing of this book is really good and love how an action scenes sucks you into the story. These scenes made it hard to put the book down as I need to know whats going to happen. The last 100 pages were hard to put down because I was so invested in characters and relationships.

Characters: This story cycles through many different characters and you really have to pay attention to the first 100 pages to understand how they are all related. I really enjoyed each of the characters that are included in this story and how intertwined they all are.

I really enjoyed the relationships that were built between the characters and how those relationships changed over time. I like how secrets and lies feed into the dynamics of the friendships and how those secrets and lies brought some closer together and others further apart.

Writing Style: This story is written in first person and goes back and forth from current time and the journal of the past. I really enjoyed the way that this story gives you pieces from someone that lived during the first events. I really like the excerpts that are included throughout from Lillian Pickard from the past because it begins to explain current times and how they got to the place they are right now.