The Witch Hunter by Virginia Boecker Book review

Sumary:

The magic and suspense of Graceling meet the political intrigue and unrest of Game of Thrones in this riveting fantasy debut.

Elizabeth Grey is one of the king’s best witch hunters, devoted to rooting out witchcraft and doling out justice. When she’s accused of being a witch herself, Elizabeth is arrested and sentenced to die at the stake. Salvation comes from a man she thought was her enemy. Nicholas Perevil, the most powerful wizard in the kingdom, offers her a deal: he will save her from execution if she can track down the person who laid a deadly curse on him.

As she’s thrust into the world of witches, ghosts, pirates, and all-too-handsome healers, Elizabeth is forced to redefine her ideas of right and wrong, of friends and enemies, and of love and hate.

My rating: Two worms!

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Damn, I thought this book was going to be great, just look at that premise! And for the first chapters, it was. The writing was good, the characters were funny and all was going great, until things simply started to stretch out for no reason and everything became predictable and forced. Soon enough the characters lost all of their personality and stared blending together.

The only way I can describe this is by imagining writing an essay; the beginning is good, you’re excited and your words flow effortlessly through the paper. Eventually you’ll get stuck, you are tired and uninspired, and you just want to finish it, so you'll start writing whatever comes to your mind.

In more than one occasion we were introduced to new characters that we were supposed to know, but had no idea who they were or why they mattered. As the story goes on it focuses more on the forced love story rather than on what is going on. I had no idea how the magic thing worked (Were you born a witch or was it something you learned?) until almost half of the book, and that was an important aspect that should have been explained considering how the MC is sent to jail for being a witch. The love interest was ok, he was a good guy but he simply lacked a personality, he was the “good guy” with a tragic past, nothing else.

Another thing that bothered me was the reason Elizabeth was accused of being a witch. Turns out the King had been forcing himself on her, sending a guard to fetch her almost every night. When she gets pregnant, Elizabeth goes to a witch to have an abortion. She says she couldn’t stop him, but she could chose not carry his child. During the story I was hoping this was mentioned again, to show Elizabeth’s reaction to finally being away from the King and the sequels to the abuse she had to suffer, but it was only mentioned once or twice and to prop up the love interest. Do I need to say how horrible that is?

It took me forever to finish this, it was just too boring.