I was expecting a lot more from this book. The cover is so magical and pretty, I had high hopes for a fun, magical adventure, through a door much like Narnia through the wardrobe! Well, that's not what I got. I got an adult woman (Who else thinks orphan = child?) who cannot look anyone in the eye or, frankly, they go insane. It's like The Happening but a woman instead of plants can force people to commit suicide. Or Bird Box but a woman instead of invisible beings. Oooh intriguing, you say? Meh. it's not. The book was pretty boring for at least 50% and then the other 50% doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. Don't be deceived by the pretty cover.

I love the cover, and I thought I'd feel the same about the book. There were a lot of lulls and places that pulled me out of the storyline. As a result, it didn't hold my attention, and I never really felt a connection with the characters.

I sometimes have a hard time with books that are told in third person and with multiple POVs. Unfortunately, this was the case here.

The characters were very hard to connect with on this one. The writing was very well done but the plot and characters were just not strong enough to hold my interest.

Omg! What a magical read. This book is basically Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic series mixed with the Midnight Library!

The twists. The turns! This book has the combination of your fairytale with thriller and fantasy. Truly enjoyable read. Loved it!

Paige Crutcher's book, The Orphan Witch, is time travel, romance, sorcery, and so many other good things rolled into one fantasy novel. Interesting characters and beautifully written text make this book difficult to put down. If you are a fan of Alice Hoffman and/or Deborah Harkness, then you must check this one out.

This is one of those “the special person doesn’t know they’re special” kind of books. You know… the main character has special powers, is needed to fulfill the quest (whatever that may be), and finally feels as if they belong? That’s the one… but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The beginning caught my attention right away and I was pulled into this magical world of Wile Isle.

I thought the building of characters and the setting was really well done. I even thought some of it was pretty creepy, which was a huge bonus!

It did get a bit boring for a while and I wasn’t sure if I’d pick it back up, but it certainly made up for it when I did.

Such a fun story. I am hoping this turns into a series!

I have mixed feelings about this book. Some parts were done amazingly well but that just made the parts that were lackluster that much duller by comparison. Persephone is such a tragic figure that she makes a quickly endearing protagonist. As she suddenly finds herself on Wile Isle with people who could understand her she starts to feel as if she may have finally found her place. At this point there was far too much monotony in the explanation of spell casting and ingredients which I felt slowed down the pacing of the story and bored me. Thankfully this also eventually leads to the reveal of different dimensions of time where Persephone can walk. That’s where she meets a potential love interest who she has amazing chemistry with. That part of the story is easily the best written and most captivating part of this story but unfortunately it’s really only a part of the larger story that really focuses on family drama and feuds and the dangers of spells. It’s a very unique book but for me the story itself was full of highs and lows. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I am at a loss. I absolutely loved the characters and the magic in this story, but the storyline just didn't seem to flow. I had a hard time following along and figuring out what Persephone had to do in order to free the witches, save her family, and break the curse. Even as the story wrapped up, I wasn't sure where to imagine the characters next. Delightful characters, but the storyline needs clearer details.

This has a lovely cover and premise, but I found myself super bored reading this. I didn’t find myself connecting to anyone or anything. It’s not for me, but it might work for someone else.

The Orphan Witch by Paige Crutcher is not my normal read but there was something about the description that intrigued me and I'm so glad I requested it. Persephone May has always felt out of place in her life. She had no family and no friends growing up and was an awkward child who grew into being an awkward adult who was constantly on the move, as she had certain powers she couldn't explain and didn't understand. She had one person in her life briefly who she considered a friend, and when, after an accidental display of her powers, this friend invited her to a place called Wile Isle, she decided to go.

Arriving there, her life took a turn and for the first time she found family and herself and was able to find out about her gifts...but she was also tasked with breaking a spell that had been in place for a hundred years and had to be broken within weeks. Was she up for the task?

A captivating novel for those of us who are still waiting for our Hogwart's invitation! Thank you to the author, St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for and ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review. #theorphanwitch #paigecrutcher #netgalley

I hate it when a cover and synopsis makes one think a book is Literary Fiction, or Women's Fiction. This story was like a cozy mystery, and a badly written one at that. An author doesn't do themselves any favors masquerading a book as something it's not. If it's a cozy promote it as a cozy. If it's a drugstore paperback romance, don't try to make people think it's legitimate Historical Fiction. I don't understand the that thought process.

Cheesy, cliche, and repetitively boring are the descriptors which come to mind when thinking about this story. Also, Wicca was used as a big fantasy element and it is a religion.

I really wanted to like this book but I found it very slow and rather boring.
The cover and the title are what caught my attention in the first place but the story was lacking.
I'm sorry to the author but this is my honest opinion...I won't share this review with Amazon or Barnes and Noble...only Goodreads and NetGalley!
Again I'm sorry...

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advanced copy. All opinions are my own

** 3.5 stars 🌟**

I was really looking forward to reading this book. After reading the blurb, I felt that there was going to be a nice blend of magic and mystery, of romance and intrigue. A new world to emerse myself in and get lost in for a few hours. I will tell you that as a whole this story has the elements of magic, time-travel, romance, and redemption. The path to finding yourself is often not a straight one. It includes pain and hardships and if you are lucking enough, there will be friends, family, and love at the end. That's was Persephone's story is about.

While this book definitely has those elements in it, overall I felt the strengths of a book get lost by the overly complex plot and wordy, meandering sections throughout the story. There were random journal entries scattered throughout the story that I really felt more gendered the flow that helped as I often had to stop and figure out how it (or if) related to want was going on in the story.

Persephone is a character that has a potential for a lot of growth. Her background of being an unwanted orphan with strange powers that drives her into seeking a lonely life to protect others is a harsh one. For someone with a background that is so mired in strife, she naively laps up every word that is said my her last family. Most of the characters something about them that doesn't flow as the story continues. I often felt like I was getting confused between which character said or did what. It could be the amount of side characters that were introduced and the amount of background associated with each.

Overall it wasn't a bad story, if as I said, a bit slow and scattered. At the end it's hard to say if it's a story about finding family and removing a curse or about two broken people finding that they can love . . .

** Thank you to NetGalley and the author for the opportunity to review an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. **

This one has SUCH a strong start but it really lost me by the end. I really enjoyed how fast it started and how much mystery there was around Persephone and the sisters, but it petered out at the end and I left feeling pretty disappointed.

I’m not sure what I was expecting from the beautiful cover and intriguing title, but it wasn’t this. I liked the world and the story had a lot of potential, but there was something in the writing of it that dragged a little for me. All of the characters felt a little flat for me. I wanted to like Persephone more. If ever a character suffered it was her so I felt for her character. Persephone was abandoned an orphan, but she wasn’t ever able to find a family or home. Anyone who looked too long in her eyes met with ill ends causing her to be very lonely. Despite the title this story isn’t about her childhood though, this is the story about Persephone finding her way to an island held together by magic that feels like home. She learns of family, curses, and what her magic really means, but will she master what she needs to in time to end the curse?

3.5⭐ Rounded up.
This started off pretty slow, but the magical family drama picked up soon enough and I could not get enough! I wish there had been an epilogue of everyone like a year in the future since I wanted to know what everyone got up to after.
Ah well.
As always, a big thanks to the crew at NetGalley & St. Martin's Press for my DRC.

***ARC received from St Martins Press and NetGalley in exchange for honest review, opinions are all my own. Thank you!***

I wanted to love this book so much, it has a gorgeous cover, witches and families found it all sounds so interesting. While I did like parts of the book, as a whole it just wasn’t a well balanced book for me.

Persephone is an interesting character. We are introduced to her as she is struggling with her abilities, many of them that she has no or little to no control over. Its a pretty standard trope for an untrained witch and while it keeps Persephone from getting close to people she is still out there living her life. She isn’t constantly running but learning to adapt to what she has little control over. What little is learned about her abilities and how they effect her is done through backstory and I wish that the book had dealt with Persephone dealing with her magic a little more in depth. Allowing us as the reader to go along with her as she struggled with not wanting to hurt people.

The book both picks up and slows down considerably once Persephone arrives at Wile Island. Once Persephone arrives at the island the conflict of the story is introduced and it mostly just lingers in the background. The book spends more time with Persephone learning to use and control her many (almost too many) abilities and exploring the magical properties of the island. I loved the concept of the island and Persephone shifting between different worlds within the island. The book has multiple third person points of view so we as the reader are given clues as to what is happening but like Persephone, mostly in the darker as she learns her own abilities and what the magic of the island is capable of. The magic of the island, the mysteries of the library were so beautiful, I loved watching it help and fight back against Persephone but they were up against clunky scenes that broke up the flow of the story.

There is a small secondary plot with Hyacinth and Ariel that just did not work for me. I think it was trying to give more backstory to Hyacinth’s actions but it distracted from the main plot and I just wasn’t invested in them since there was already so much going on with Persephone, the prophecy, the library, witches that just magically appear for almost no reason and dumps of backstory. It also doesn’t help that outside of Persephone, the cousins weren’t very fleshed out. Their parts slowed down the book for me and felt unnecessary. Maybe if it had dropped one or two of the characters or just dropped the feud subplot completely it wouldn’t have gotten so confusing at time. The story tried to have too many angles that resulted in me getting lost until it returns back to the plot. And for a book thats only 350 pages it felt excessively long at points.

In the end The Orphan Witch has some great concepts and interesting world building that gets lost in its own story.

What an epic fantasy this is. Persephone is so much more than she first appears. She is magical and lost. Finding herself and her purpose makes for a fantastic story.

I was fortunate enough to have watched an interview with Paige Crutcher where she discussed her debut novel, “The Orphan Witch.” She talked about her background and how she came up with the storyline and I knew immediately that it would be an amazing book!

“The Orphan Witch” is hopeful, ethereal and otherworldly, and from the first page I was enchanted by Persophone and her thirst for knowledge, her love of books, and her desire to belong. My heart broke as she was moved from one foster home to another. She never let it get her down and she quietly kept to herself, studying hard and eventually graduating from college. Persephone knew she was different from the average young woman and her magical powers scared and confused her. It is hard for anyone not to fit in and she longed to find out who she was and where she came from.

I was afraid for Persephone when she accepted an invitation to visit someone that she had only met once. What did she really know about Hyacinth? Where would her directions take her and who would be waiting for her when she arrived? In my mind, I could see the fog surrounding her as she stepped off the ferry into the dark night. Persephone could feel the magic emanating from the island and she wondered if she had made the right decision, but she had nowhere else to go. As she dragged her suitcases behind her and walked into the mist, she hoped she would find the answers she was looking for.

I am in awe of Ms. Crutcher’s creativity, imagination and exceptional character development. As I was reading, I felt as if I was part of the story as I witnessed Persephone interacting with everyone she met on her journey. The magic of her story enlightened me, entertained me and made me believe that anything was possible.

This was a very original piece of work. Persephone knows she is different-any time she seems to make connections with people, bad things tend to happen. She spends her time running, until she runs right into the place she is meant to be. Overall, this is a cute book that has a lot of witchy, fun stuff going on. I found the writing style to be a bit confusing at times=sometimes understanding how pieces of the puzzle fit together was difficult. Loved how strong Persephone was through it all, and how eager she was to to learn.