I am sure we all know the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but this covers the not as well known character in the tale by the name of Katrina Van Tassel. When Ichabod Crane comes into town he meets the wealthy Katrina and they instantly bond over their mutual love of books and music. They soon fall in love and make secret plans to marry. Brom Van Brunt, also known as Brom Bones, is determined to marry Katrina himself. Then All Hallows Eve arrives and Ichabod disappears, never to be seen again.
This book was fascinating. It had the chill of the original Sleepy Hollow story, and the added excitement of the expanded storyline. This book proves fairy tales are not just for children!

The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel

I gave this three stars only because I think the author had a good concept, unfortunately the story just didn’t develop. First Katrina had no spell book and even her friend Charlotte was more mid wife/healer than witch. There were no surprises and it was pretty obvious how this was going to end as soon an Bram Bones appeared. This was less thriller and more romance but even the sex scenes were tedious. And I cannot even comment on the singing lessons.

This book felt like an excuse to tell some related scary stories and improve on the original short story. Good for the author that she wanted to make Katrina a strong, independent minded young woman. But really she came across as a scared girl who romanticized this stranger and ended up in a bad situation of her own making. I get it, love is great but can you really fall that deeply in love after spending only a few hours with someone?

I wish I liked it more but clearly there are other reviewers who loved it, so it certainly has an appreciative audience. I didn’t hate it, but only finished it because St. Martin’s Press was kind enough to give me early access in exchange for an honest review.

What wonderful retelling of the legend of Sleepy Hollow and the headless horseman!

The story is told from Katrina van Tassel's point of view - who she is, what she loves, and how the legend affects her life. As we meet her, Katrina is a vibrant young woman, who's father wants her to wed the son of the neighboring farm. But Katrina is entranced by the newly arrived schoolteacher, Ichabod Crane, and has a long standing dislike of Brom van Brunt, who mistreated her best friend Charlotte in a way that Katrina will never be able to forgive. But Ichabod is a poor itinerant teacher who will never have the resources to take care of Katrina in a way that would be acceptable to her father. Katrina and Ichabod, deeply in love, find a way to meet and have time together, until on All Hallow's Eve, Ichabod disappears. Does the headless horseman have something to do with Ichabod's disappearance or is it just a legend? What do Katrina's dreams of the headless horseman, Ichabod and Brom mean? Can Charlotte's talents help Katrina to find the truth of what has happened to Ichabod? You will have to read the book to find out!

Palombo's writing is as lyrical and moving as the music and literature that Ichabod and Katrina both love. The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel is a mind bending ride through Sleepy Hollow and it's legends!

Alyssa Palombo takes readers back to the eerie village of Sleepy Hollow in The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel. It begins with Katrina Van Tassel and her meeting Ichabod Crane. Ichabod surprises her because he is not like the other men from the village, especially Brom Van Brunt. Soon they find themselves in a whirlwind love affair. However, on All Hallow’s Eve, Ichabod vanishes. Rumors spread that he was taken by The Headless Horseman. No one truly knows. However, Katrina with the help of her friend, Charlotte, is determined to find out his fate.

Oh, how I loved visiting Sleepy Hollow once more. I read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow every year around October, so this book was a wonderful read to set the fall mood! What I loved, even more, is that it was from the perspective of Katrina Van Tassel. In the original tale, we just know that two men are vying for affections and that she has a wealthy father. In this story, we get to know Katrina a bit more. She has a love for books and reading and of course, telling stories. I really enjoyed her stories of early American lore. She is also a strong woman, not one to be trifled with. I also loved her bond with her best friend Charlotte.

However, I do wish that there was a bit more suspense. I wanted more from this tale and more of a twist. The ending was not surprising. I just wanted a moment that shocked me. However, overall it was quite an enjoyable story! I do love when people take a classic and make it their own. So I rate this book 4 out of 5 stars. I definitely recommend it to those who love romance, lore and a little bit of the paranormal.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review!

Put this book on your list, it will be published October 2nd!

This book, this book, this BOOK. I love Sleepy Hollow. Anyone who knows me knows this. I don't keep it a secret, so when I was approved for this book I was so excited. I love reading any twist on the original tale and one that was from Katrina's point-of-view I knew would be hit or miss, but this was definitely a hit. I kept telling myself I'd only read one more chapter before bed and before I knew it it was 3:30 in the morning! This keeps you on the edge of your sweet, while still has the vibe you would expect with a story that is based on the Irving tale. I'll be purchasing a paperback edition of this book as soon I as I can. 5 out of 5 stars.

Just in time for Halloween, Alyssa Palombo presents The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel, a retelling of the legend of Katrina Van Tassel, lover of Ichabod Crane, and victim of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow, New York.

This telling takes on the cast of a romantic tragedy.  When itinerant schoolmaster Ichabod Crane moves into the Van Tassel home for the school year, the music teacher and the daughter of the house find they have much in common; open minds, and a love of education, words, and music.  When Ichabod promises to give Katrina voice lessons, love begins to blossom between them. Soon he’s expanding her knowledge of English, and she’s demonstrating her love of Shakespeare to him, and they’re sneaking away for forbidden trysts.   But Katrina’s father will never approve of her marrying a simple schoolteacher and tries to aim her in the direction of Brom Bones - aka Bron Van Brunt - the town’s darling and one of Katrina’s childhood chums.  Brom has done something Katrina can never forgive to her best friend Charlotte Jansen – a practicing herbalist and midwife occasionally accused of witchcraft - and though everyone pressures her to marry him, she cannot contemplate it.  The love affair between Katrina and Ichabod becomes more obvious, and as a result the rivalry between Brom and Ichabod grows in intensity, and comes to violence.

Then that horrible Halloween party happens, and Ichabod disappears upon learning a deep secret of Katrina’s.  When he doesn’t resurface, rumors that the Headless Horsemen did him in filter through the town and begin to poison the lives of the townspeople.  In despair, Katrina turns to her most hated foe to secure safety and security for one dear to her.  To escape her new marriage – and to find out what happened to Ichabod – she turns to Charlotte, and together the two women begin searching for the truth about the schoolmaster’s disappearance.  What will they find?

The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel is less a story of the supernatural and more a story about the weight of lost love, the pain of secrets, and the sweetness of forbidden attraction.  Palumbo does a fine job weaving a spell around the reader; all of her characters feel well-rounded, and like people of their time period.

Katrina is flawed and bold, and her headstrong nature leads to her biggest problems.  She’s understandable and relatable as a purely flawed heroine. Palombo’s version of Ichabod makes him the kind of sex symbol not connected with the character since Johnny Depp’s performance in the movie Sleepy Hollow; it’s easy to fall in love with him as Katrina does.  Bron, meanwhile, is Disney’s Gaston incarnated all over again in the form of a farmer, though he does have tender moments of humanity that help make him more than  a two-dimensional ogre.  This is also the case with Katrina’s disapproving parents.

Charlotte is an interesting puzzlement, the classic herbalist-who’s-accused of witchery; only Charlotte has a passel of somewhat stock supernatural talents, from prophetic tarot card readings to brewing herbs that can induce visions to literally having premonitions of the future.  The titular spellbook belongs more to Charlotte than Katrina in the end, and one actually wants to learn more of her, and her romance with Ichabod’s cousin.  Her friendship with Katrina is fraught with complexities that are quite intriguing.

The book makes vague stabs at trying to talk about the issues of the day – the Salem Witch Trials of the century before get a passing mention, as do George Washington’s presidency and the separation of the country into Federalism and Republicanism, followed by John Adam’s election.  The story takes a few stabs at making statements about slavery by exploring the contrasting attitudes of its characters, and also inserting a poignant but also somewhat unnecessary side story involving Katrina and her maid, Nancy.  But the main focus is on the mystery surrounding Ichabod’s disappearance, which – sadly - is not much of a true mystery. Readers will likely easily pick up context clues much earlier in the book than the plot needs you to.  Whether the killer is really supernatural or just posing as a supernatural entity, I will leave the reader to discover.

Overall, The Spellbook of Katrina Von Tassel is a fine but imperfect, and happily somewhat feminist, take on the woman at the center of Washington Irving’s tale.  The romance will transport you, even if the long, sad aftermath leaves you with a hangover.

Buy it at: Amazon/Barnes & Noble/iBooks/Kobo

Ichabod Crane arrives in Sleepy Hollow after accepting an offer to become the new schoolmaster.  He is enamored with Katrina, the only daughter of his host, Master Van Tassel.

A romance blooms and soon the pair are involved in an illicit affair that could ruin them if anyone were to find out.
Ichabod knows he has little to offer the wealthy Katrina; he has no land or even a home, but the pair believe their love will gain the acceptance of Master Van Tassel and he will give his blessing for them to marry.
Katrina's childhood friend Brom Van Brunt lost her affections years ago when he made dangerous accusations about her best friend, Charlotte Jansen.  Brom is set on winning Katrina's hand and when he realizes she is in love with the new schoolmaster, he becomes enraged.

The Van Tassel's host a party on the night of All Hallow's Eve which brings many surprises for the lovers as Ichabod prepares to ask Master Van Tassel for his daughter's hand in marriage.

The following morning the only trace of Ichabod Crane is his hat caught in a low hanging tree branch near the bridge.  The town is rife with rumors that Ichabod's disappearance has something to do with the legend of the Headless Horseman though Katrina worries it may have something to do with the events of the previous night.

With the help of her friend Charlotte, Katrina sets out to learn the fate of her true love while doing all she can to keep some rather dangerous secrets.

When I first heard about this book, I jumped at the opportunity to read an advanced readers copy!  I am a huge fan of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (both the Washington Irving tale and the classic animated Disney movie) and was intrigued to read the story from Katrina's perspective.

While the writing itself was well done, the story wasn't at all what I expected.  The first half of the book is Katrina and Ichabod's romance:  they are either sneaking off to the woods together, thinking about when they will sneak of to the woods together next, or trying to keep their hands off one another while they're in the company of others. So it's a lot of romance and I'm not really interested in spending a lot of time on that.  
I wanted a spooky tale centering on Ichabod's disappearance and Katrina's investigation, which is not the case.  After Ichabod's disappearance, Katrina has secrets to keep which means she doesn't have time to investigate for a while and instead spends a lot of time pining for her lover.  There are vague mentions of the Headless Horseman throughout the novel but nothing too sinister or creepy.
I spent the majority of the time waiting for events to unfold and by the end I was underwhelmed.  I figured the end would give at least some spooky vibes but it just wasn't there.  If you want to be spooked, I recommend watching the Disney animated movie instead.

While I was bored by all the romance and disappointed by the lack of general spookiness, I appreciated Palombo choosing to write this retelling from Katrina's perspective and giving the female characters strong voices and opinions.  Palombo also did a fair amount of research on Washington Irving and the real town of Sleepy Hollow and its legends.

Thanks to St. Martin's and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review.  The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel: A Story of Sleepy Hollow is scheduled for release on October 2, 2018.

It might be only September, but with an expected publication for October 2018, you're definitely going to want to hear Katrina Van Tassel's point of view on the superstitions of Sleepy Hollow, a young schoolteacher named Ichabod Crane, and one Headless Horseman. Alyssa Palombo is vastly becoming one of my favorite authors as she is gifted in providing her readers with rich historical content about a young American nation while also making me swoon over Ichabod. If I had one little critique, it took me until chapter 11 to really get interested in the plot and adjust my reading stance to the dialogue. But once Katrina and her friend Charlotte start talking I was interested really fast.

I have loved the story of Sleepy Hollow for most of my life and I also adore a great retelling so this was right up my alley. The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel, of course, focuses on Katrina, a character from the original tale that is typically glossed over. I thought it was great to be able to focus on her and see the events of the familiar story unfold through her eyes.

That said, it did take me a little while to get really invested in the novel. Nothing automatically caught me, except for mentions of the American Revolution, which are my bread and butter. Still, once the ball really got rolling, I enjoyed where this went. It felt true to the original Sleepy Hollow and yet also managed to stand on its own.

Alyssa Polombo has been on my radar since she released The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence last year. I adored that book so I'm glad that I'm continuing to click with her work.

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this arc for review!

"The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel" is a retelling of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow from the point-of-view of one of the characters (Katrina). Katrina is a young woman of 18 who loves to read and spend time with her best friend Charlotte. Charlotte and her mother are midwives who also know about herbs and can treat ailments. Charlotte may also be able to see some visions of the future. It was this skill that got her labeled a witch by Brom Van Brunt (Brom Bones). While the three used to play together frequently as children, after Brom's accusations, Charlotte and Katrina refused to acknowledge him.

Katrina's family is wealthy and so they would like to see her make a good match. It is their wealth and her father's good standing that leads him to be a powerful member of the community. As such, the new schoolteacher, Ichabod Crane, comes to call on him and is offered a place to stay until he can begin to stay with his pupils, as is customary. When their eyes meet, Katrina finds herself drawn to the schoolteacher from Connecticut. As he offers her singing lessons and they begin to spend more time together, Katrina and Ichabod begin to fall in love.

However, as Ichabod is poor and would be seen as a fortune hunter, they must be careful about their attractions. Brom is also set on making Katrina his wife. Although she wants nothing to do with him after his accusations of Charlotte, Katrina's father also thinks Brom would be a good match. Brom's father (and thus Brom) have the second largest fortune/farm in the area and the joining of the two is good business. Considering they were also friends as children, Katrina's father also believes their love would grow over time (love was not the basis for marriage in the 1700s). However, Katrina only wants Ichabod (although this remains a secret due to his socioeconomic status) until Katrina feels the time would be right for him to announce his intentions.

We all know where the story is fated to go (as it does follow the Legend of Sleepy Hollow). However, this is a story of love, forbidden romance, jealousy, and mystery. The superstitious town has its legends, particularly of the Headless Horseman. Katrina sees him in her dreams. While I was expecting more magic (primarily due to the title), here it is limited to visions and herbal concoctions (though I don't think this qualifies). The vast majority of the book is about Katrina's love for Ichabod and the subsequent anguish when he disappears.

My favorite character was Charlotte, and I really liked her big involvement in the story and her wisdom. I would have loved to read the story from her perspective too (or maybe she could have her own story someday). Overall, I felt that this retelling really brought new life to the old story. I did find that it dragged a bit in the middle, but the ending was quite fascinating, and I enjoyed it overall. The story really takes on new meaning when reimagined from Katrina's perspective, and this is a great Halloween season read.

Please note that I received an ARC from the publisher through netgalley. All opinions are my own.

'It was in early summer of my eighteenth year that my destiny arrived, and despite my fancy for premonitions he took me quite by surprise.'

This is the story of Katrina Van Tassel, who falls in love with the Sleepy Hollow’s new school master Ichabod Crane. Katrina is delighted when she learns of Mr. Crane’s love for music, and that her father has engaged his services of singing lessons, for her. So begins a love affair that can only lead to doom and gloom with a legendary headless horseman running amok.

Then there is Brom Van Brunt (oh how I love these old names) nicknamed ‘Brom Bones’ for his large frame, the town’s beloved favored son, and bully (when he isn’t leaving sighing women in his wake) who is sure Katrina is his destiny. They are all hung up on their destiny here! Brom is adamant Katrina will be his, has known this since childhood as they were once a tight trio including her best friend Charlotte (of strange gifts). They spent their youth inventing their own mischief until he turned sour, cruel to Charlotte for something she did (which is his fault, really). Now he seems to spend most of his time sniffing around Katrina and informing her that she will ‘come around’ to loving him, to being his wife. It’s only a matter of time, and a lot of harassment. He may have been her first kiss, but she’ll be damned if he’s her last.

Even the most progressive parents weren’t likely to welcome a terrible match for their child. Her father certainly isn’t going to support his daughter’s love for someone like Ichabod, well read and musical talents aside, wealth speaks louder than character when it comes to your precious, privileged child. Is Brom so awful? I mean, really Katrina, the whole town loves him, he is popular and handsome, full of brawn and… well he looks good on paper and that’s what mattered then. Alliances aren’t often made between the pillars of society and the penniless, better the promise of Brom or someone of his ilk. Maybe Charlotte can use her ‘magical talents’, reading tarot cards to see if there is even a slim chance of happiness and a future as Mrs. Crane. Charlotte does seem to have her uses.

Charlotte spends much of the novel giving warnings, or herbs to solve other inconveniences for Katrina. She has ‘feelings’, some of us may just call this intuition, others a wild imagination, depends on who you ask. Katrina isn’t immune to visions herself, in her nightmares of the headless horseman she keeps seeing ominous warnings but he isn’t real!!!! Something is brewing, but is her love for Ichabod truly doomed? Not even the terror of a legend can keep the lusty lovers out of the woods, and each other’s arms.

Circumstances push her to conform to society and it’s demands when Ichabod seems to have disappeared on All Hallows Eve, life becomes its own special hell. Will she ever be reunited with her lover? Or will she have to go to extreme measures to keep herself, and maybe someone else, safe?

It does have a pinch of feminism with Katrina, whose spirit won’t be tamed, who wants to love where she will and thwarts society, maybe even has to resort to manipulations here and there. Herbs as a safeguard against unwanted pregnancy isn’t something new, though it was forbidden (such witchery), even when she is reduced to accepting the turn her life takes, she still tries to hold some sway over her own destiny. My only beef was, I expected more terror beyond the occasional nightmare. Though to be fair, human beings are ugly enough themselves without a headless horseman lurking about and they don’t fail to be so here. I wished for more magic and spells, I mean love can be a spell I suppose or a curse. No? With Spellbook is in the title, I admit I was holding out for witches and spells, all sorts of spooky but I have high demands.

It was fun to visit Spooky Hollow again but came off more as a romance. More seduction than nightmare. Charlotte’s reputation is dangerously ruined by Brom early on, no one takes kindly to any whispers of evil, dangerous accusations, couldn’t the novel have backed up these threats with more than her seeing into the future? Too bad she couldn’t conjure some spell against Brom, but take heart, he seems hellbent on defeating himself half the time. If you like romance with an old spooky legend thrown in, this will be perfect for you. Just in time for pumpkin patches, and headless men, out in October.

Publication Date: October 2, 2018

St. Martin’s Press

St. Griffin

The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel is a feminist retelling of the legend of Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. I was looking forward to reading it, because it's exactly the kind of story I enjoy. Spooky, paranormal, romantic stories with strong heroines are my jam. Unfortunately this book left me wanting more. It is slow-paced and I found the first part especially, excruciatingly boring. I am usually a fast reader but it took me awhile to finish this book, I kept putting it down and wasn't in any hurry to pick it back up.

I wasn't a fan of Katrina and Ichabod's love story, it was too insta-lovie for my taste. I thought both Katrina and Ichabod were one-dimensional and not very interesting and I found the writing style a little dry. I wasn't immersed in the story, which I should have been based on the setting. I wanted The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel to be more atmospheric, more spooky, and just more.

PSA: Read this book. From the very first pages, I devoured THE SPELLBOOK OF KATRINA VAN TASSEL. The voice, along with the heart-pounding, -wrenching, and -warming story, was so well done. This is the perfect spooky and thrilling novel to cozy up with as All Hallows' Eve approaches! A wonderful retelling!

Though it has its roots in German folklore, Washington Irving's story, 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow', has become quintessentially American, moving away from the realm of fairy tales and into that of ghost stories. For all its fame, though, the original tale is fairly short, its characters flat and lacking any real depth beyond "geeky schoolteacher", "young, pretty girl" and "arrogant jock". Other works have fleshed these characters out, but most, like Tim Burton's 1999 film, Sleepy Hollow, or the 2013 TV show of the same name, focus on Ichabod Crane.

In The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel, Alyssa Palombo seeks to rectify this lack of emphasis on Katrina through her elegantly told story of friendship and love. As in 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow', Katrina is the beautiful daughter of the wealthiest man in the eerie town of Sleepy Hollow, located in the woods of northern New York where every rock and tree seem to have a ghost story attached to it. When the story opens, Katrina is eighteen years old, the town beauty, the apple of her parents' eyes, and accustomed to getting her way in everything. When the new school teacher, Ichabod Crane, arrives to introduce himself to her father, Katrina is immediately intrigued-- especially when Crane offers to give her music lessons. A mutual attraction forms, and the two are soon desperate to be together and end up sneaking into the woods by night to steal a few hours alone.

While the two are desperately in love, Ichabod Crane is a lowly schoolteacher with little money and no property to his name. Katrina, in contrast, is a wealthy heiress and her father, Baltus Van Tassel wants to find her a similarly wealthy husband who can manage the Van Tassel lands when he is dead. Brom Van Brunt is an ideal match in Baltus's eyes, but Katrina has hated Brom for years, ever since he made an accusation that nearly destroyed her best friend Charlotte's reputation and life in Sleepy Hollow.

The fates of Katrina, Ichabod, Brom, and Charlotte take a twist one All Hallows' Eve, when Ichabod disappears under mysterious circumstances, leaving Katrina in a dangerous situation that forces her to make a series of difficult decisions that change her life forever.

If the star-crossed romance is the spark that sets this story ablaze, Katrina's friendship with Charlotte is the warmth that keeps it burning when Ichabod disappears. For all its romance, The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel is a book about women, female friendships, and the power women claimed in an era when, legally, they were nearly powerless. No matter the twists and turns in their lives, Katrina and Charlotte stay together, taking each other into their confidences and sharing their deepest secrets. As much as one asks of the other, as much as each girl's decision might pain the other, they forgive each other in the end and wish each other happiness. Instead of devolving into pettiness and deliberate misunderstanding-- as happens with too many female friendships in popular culture-- Katrina and Charlotte support each other, even when one has made a decision that angers the other.

The atmosphere, too, supports the story. Sleepy Hollow is a quaint and ordered town with its church and school and provincial expectations. Everyone is very proper and no one does anything unexpected. This order is contrasted with the woods, an eerie milieu where spirits seem to loom at every turn, where emotions run wild, and anything might happen. Oddly, when reading the passages in the forest I was reminded of another American classic, The Scarlet Letter, where the woods are regarded as a wild and frightening place full of passion and danger. But where Nathaniel Hawthorne leads Hester Prynne into a life of condemnation for her romantic entanglements among the trees, Alyssa Palombo avoids the same easy morality. While Katrina pays dearly for her secret journeys into the woods, Palombo does not punish her Katrina for her youthful passions. This is not a didactic story about double standards where the heroine stands tall, but alone. Rather, it is a tale of a girl growing into the woman she must become and the friendship that sustains her.

Though the book is called The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel, there is less magic than I had expected. This is not a mark against the book, however, as I think more magical elements would have spoiled the story. While there are definite moments of stereotypical magic, Palombo seems to be reaching back to the origins of the word, 'witch', which, arguably, trace back to Middle English, German, and Dutch words that mean, 'one who knows' or 'wise woman'. And indeed, Charlotte and her mother are wise women who serve as healers in Sleepy Hollow, but who are also able to See secret knowledge about their neighbors, the past, and sometimes even the future. Katrina senses echoes of Charlotte and her mother when she reads MacBeth and ponders the magic of the Weird Sisters, but it is not until later that Katrina develops her own form of magic. As a willful, spoiled teenager she cannot see anything but her own desires. She must grow up and begin to truly see the people around her before she can peer into a realm beyond mortal sight.

My only issue with the book is the inclusion of the prologue. It reads like a typical "everyone thinks they know what the story is about, but here is what actually happened" introduction. I don't think the story is any stronger for its inclusion, and though it is a scant page long, I found it to be distracting and unnecessary. But that is my only complaint. The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel is a quiet, atmospheric retelling of a well-known American legend, told from the point of view of the girl who seems almost incidental to the original story. It is, at its core, a story of women's lives-- their loves, their choices, and the power of the friendships that sustain them.

I don't generally pick out historical fiction, but occasionally I do, and this one did not disappoint at all. The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel tells the story of Sleepy Hollow through the eyes for Katrina Van Tassel, who was not given the same fair billing in the original version of Irving's story. There she was flat, and an accessory of sorts to the story. In this version, she is the story, and what a story she tells. A story of love, of loss, of deception, of secrets shared and secrets held, and a town that seems otherworldly in a way. This is no quick tale, as the Legend of Sleepy Hollow was. It is instead a story woven well by Alyssa Palombo, with depth, character, history and heart. The story finds 19 year old Katrina, living in her parents home, with her dog, her parents, and a number of fully paid and loved individuals who work in the house. (Katrina's parents do not believe in slaves, at a time when life is beginning to change in America but has not fully done so.) Katrina's dearest friend Charlotte, is a dear soul in the novel, who stands by Katrina's side through thick and thin. At one time, they were great friends with Brom Bones, until Charlotte told him his future, and he, being scared and unnerved, told the entire town she was a witch. This did not deter Katrina's friendship with her, but did cause Katrina to no longer be friends with Brom. Ichabod Crane enters the scene as the new school teacher for the village, and Katrina takes an instant liking to him and he to her. Her father agrees to have Ichabod provide singing lessons for Katrina, as he cannot refuse her desires. Ichabod also stays at her parents house for a time and they get to know each other well. You probably know the story, Ichabod has competition for Katrina, as Brom asks her father for permission to court her. That piece of the story is true to the original tale... the bones of it anyway. However, Palombo's telling of the tale is rich with detail that makes everything come alive and even though you know what happens, you still need to know what happens! This book was so well written, with a story told so amazingly well, you cannot help but love it.

I love the legend of Sleepy Hollow and the author’s previous books that were set in Italy so I did have high hopes for this book. To see things from Katrina’s perspective was interesting, she dealt with so much sorrow, but it did take me some time to get into the book and I honestly had to reread it to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

his retelling of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is the perfect book for anyone who loves spooky stories, Halloween, the supernatural, and history. This is exactly the type of story I want to curl up with during crisp fall weather, or when I am just dreaming about a historical New England autumn setting. This has the perfect level of eerie supernatural. Told through the perspective of Katrina Van Tassel, this becomes both relateable and reflects the historical realities of women at the time of the early American setting.

I was eager to read this book from Alyssa Palombo, after wholeheartedly falling in love with her previous book, The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence.

In all fairness, I might have gone into this book with too many expectations, One of my new favorite authors & one of my favorite childhood legends. Although the book was written quite beautifully- drawing you in with vivid descriptions, likeable characters, an interesting storyline - I came out of the story a little underwhelmed. I was hoping for a "mystical legend ", filled in "sorcery & spells" leaving me with "scary feels" .

I really wanted to like this book, but I just could not get into it.

A different take on the classic tale of Sleepy Hollow. I am a sucker for retellings of classics (especially ones i love). I was hoping to like this a little more than I did. Not to say it wasn't good...it just wasn't what I was expecting.

Who hasn't heard the Legend of Sleepy Hollow? It's long been one of my favorites. Ms. Palombo has given it a different spin.

In the sleepy little village of Sleepy Hollow, a new teacher has arrived. As the wealthiest member of the town, Katrina's father is hosting him until he finds lodging with his students.

When Ichabod Crane and Katrina meet, there is an immediate connection on both sides and soon they are stealing away to the woods where their friendship turns to passion and love. 

The two lovers come from very different worlds and Katrina's father is determined to marry her off to her childhood friend, Brom Van Brunt, who has become a rather unpleasant fellow vying for her affections.

When Ichabod disappears on All Hallow's Eve, Katrina is devastated and in a predicament.

With little choice but to marry Brom, she is miserable and her heart still belongs to her love. When she enlists her friend Charlotte's help to find out what happened, she is shocked to her core.

Could the tale be more than just a scary story? Is the Headless Horseman real? And what will happen when she discovers what happened to Ichabod and who is to blame?

A story of love, magic, and timeless tales. Well Done!

Netgalley/October 2nd 2018 by St. Martin's Griffin