Alysha Gale is a 24-year-old who, after losing her job, is forced to move back home with her extended family. Her family is large and in each others business and runs on something of a coven-like structure. The women rule the roost, and power increases with age. Things are normal, if depressing for Alysha, until the day when she receives a letter from her eccentric grandmother, stating that if she is reading this letter, her grandmother is dead. This is concerning news because it takes a lot to kill a Gale woman, and if you attack one you attack them all. Her grandmother's letter instructs her to go across the country to manage a store she was running there, and to settle any affairs she had outstanding. When she makes her way to her grandmother's store, she finds that the store is not as ordinary as your normal junk shop may be, nor are its patrons, and not is the town. On top of the everyday weirdness, she discovers that a sorcerer (not a friend to witches) has sent his apprentice to keep an eye on Alysha to make sure she doesn't interfere with his... plans. There's a big threat coming to town, and if the sorcerer's afraid, it's definitely something powerful and not good. What will Alysha do about the apparent danger in the city, not to mention some... interesting characters she comes across.
I enjoyed this novel, though it took a while to get off the ground. The author sort of just throws the reader into the culture of this family without really taking time to explain the rules or behaviours. In a way it's interesting because that is how a stranger would approach a culture like that, learning bit by bit along the way. On the negative side however, a more effort is spent at the beginning of the book guessing at what's happening and trying to figure out just who this family is and what they are than your average book requires. This writing technique also subliminally adds to the clannish nature of the family and the difficulty one would have actually getting to know them as an outsider. That said, once you are introduced, the family culture it is pretty intricate and fun. I liked Alysha as a main character. She was lost and unsure of who she was or where she was going pretty much throughout the entire book, but despite that, she always took challenges head on and ultimately had the spirit of a leader and a fighter. That spirit grew stronger as the novel progressed. There was good character development throughout the book. Most of the main characters and even some of the minor characters showed various levels of growth over the span of the story. Both the plot as well as the character development were well thought out and provide the reader with a lot to pay attention to. She also has a lot of fun with the dialogue, letting her characters be both bitingly sarcastic and comfortable with some puns, which can be fun in moderation. Overall this was probably not the best contemporary fantasy I have ever read nor the most gripping, but it is a fun read with interesting characters and an engaging plot.
The author is Canadian and the story takes place in various Canadian cities, so there is a bit of Canadiana that the author plays around with throughout the story, so if you know something about Canadian culture you'll be slightly entertained or annoyed, but if you don't then you might be slightly confused at times. A disclaimer for younger readers is that there is suggested sexual content. There are no explicit scenes but there is plenty of suggestion, and sex is linked to how the witches manage their power and how the family dynamic works. It's a good in between books book.
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