I feel like I don't have much to say about this book. That's not because I didn't like it, I enjoyed it well enough, but something is missing for me. The first 30% felt really slow and was difficult for me to get through. After that it picked up and was fairly paced the rest of the book. It was a bit difficult for me to fully immerse myself in the story, I didn't really connect with any of the characters personally, not that they were terribly written, there was actually decent detail put into each of the characters. The setting(s) could have used some of that extra description, though. This book gave me Great Gatsby meets Practical Magic vibes and I didn't hate it, and would read more from the author, I'm just not sure this book was for me. That doesn't mean it won't be for you, though, and I guarantee there are people who will adore this book. Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This is a book with a beautiful thriller pacing where it builds and builds until suddenly we are on this insane roller coaster with our characters as their lives clash and meld in the oddest but most satisfying ways. The magic that we find in this novel was a no-brainer for Francesca as she has always loved that feeling of dark magic and the betrayal of self that it brings about in the magic user.

One of the biggest themes of this book is that idea of self-confidence and the coming of age issue of finding out how much to sacrifice in order to get what you want. Francesca admits that most of these characters have a lack of self-confidence which drives them to sacrifice too much of themselves to reach their goals. Bea is really the best example as she is super selfish and while she has the same goal as everyone else of being happy; however her idea of happiness is materialistic and she gives up everything in order to keep a rich husband.

Sadly this was just painfully slow with no action, intrigue, or interesting characterization happening for nearly a fifth of what is not a short book. That made the rest of this feel very slow to get through and I struggled to focus on what was happening, especially as the chapters shifted POV.

The magic that’s promised and sounds intriguing in the synopsis was no where to be seen for quite a while and the alternating POVs were confusing with each introducing other side characters with seemingly little fanfare while the bulk of their narratives focused on describing everything in minute detail. I can appreciate a slow burn unfurling of magic, but there has to be enough to sustain my interest, and this didn’t have it.

The plot just wasn’t clear from the beginning and the characters didn’t have much depth to make them fee relatable or that you could root for them.

This book starts just as World War I ends and our main character, Annie Mason, has traveled to settle her late father's estates on Crow Island. When she arrives she notices that her neighbors are quite odd and there's a bit of gossip about them dabbling into the magical arts and being witches. While on Crow Island she sees her former best friend who had left her without a word in the past and they reconnect. When Annie meets one of her odd neighbors Emmeline she feels this strange pull towards the woman who dresses like a man. She later finds out that Bea is not being completely truthful with her husband Arthur and then Annie sees Bea at one of Emmeline's parties after Arthur warns her about the odd neighbors. As Annie becomes closer to Emmeline things start to become complicated and the magic surrounding them starts to unfurl.

I found this gothic historical fantasy to be very atmospheric and beautifully written. I love the creepy ambience the author created throughout the story that really lended a hand to the magic filled world. I enjoyed reading from almost all of the characters point of views and getting little hints of who these peoples were before the narration switched back to Annie. I really liked how far Annie came from the first time I was introduced to her all the way to the part in the story where she really found her fire and spirit. While I really enjoyed the descriptive way the author drew us into the magical world that was dangerous and beautiful, I found some of the book to be a little slow. I loved the easy way the author handled self acceptance and being different in the story. If you love historical gothic fantasies filled with witchcraft and slow burn sapphic romance then this is the book for you.

Thank you to Netgalley and Redhook Books for the digital copy of this book with me in exchange for an honest review.

I hear gender flipped Gatsby with witches I requested immediately. The setting & atmosphere of the book were captivating and well written.

The reason I’m giving it 4 instead of a full 5 is because of character development. I wish Nathan & Isobel’s characters had been more fleshed out. I absolutely love a found family & I feel like there was a lot of unexplored potential here. We also don’t get to know any of the characters super well outside of their magic & their one (1) personality trait.

On that note, Annie’s character arc was more of a jump than an arc. The book starts with us being told how meek Annie is/was, but we never really see that? It’s just a lot of “Old Annie would have run, but not now.” I would have liked to see more of a gradual character development of her really growing into herself. It was just a very sudden change. I did like her relationship with Emmaline though I would be greedy and would have liked more scenes of their relationship developing.

I also really liked the narrative set up with flashback scenes and withholding information from us, in the beginning I found it very confusing and eventually went back in the book when I was getting more into it and understanding of the plot, it was only then I was making any connections between the past and present.

I would just really, really like to live in a cottage on the beach of Crow Island where I take long walks with my cup of tea while listening to the sounds of the ocean with my witch girlfriend, is that too much to ask?

There was just too much going on without enough payoff for any of it to read 400+ pages. I had such high hopes, but it got so jumbled up that I couldn't even keep up with which woman was narrating.

I'm very torn on how to feel about this book now that I've finished it. I went into it only with the knowledge that it was a Gatsby retelling of sorts and that there were sapphic elements to the story. In this regard, the book actually delivered very well. It's been a while since I read The Great Gatsby, but I could still easily recognize where the author took influence from the original story. At the same time, while it was definitely a retelling, it was a loose retelling which made it feel fresh and a bit harder to predict where the story was going. The prevalence of the witchy elements in this story really made this stand out in my opinion. The mix of that and the Gatsby-like parties made for a nice atmospheric read as well, and it even leaned more toward the spooky and unsettling side at certain points which I hadn't been expecting.

Despite loving the mood set by this story, the main thing holding me back from giving this a higher review is the characters. The three main characters, as well as plenty of side characters, are all very clearly flawed. That on its own isn't a negative for me as I actually really enjoy reading about flawed characters. Unfortunately, certain characters felt a bit one-dimensional, and the constant indecisiveness and hesitance to follow through with any decisions got more frustrating the longer the story went on. I actually find behavior like this to be pretty relatable but it was still a bit of a struggle to see characters develop in some ways and yet exhibit this same behavior in different situations. It also got harder to support the decisions being made by these characters as the consequences of their actions gradually became clearer. There were moments where I was truthfully more interested in the side characters, even those that were supposed to be antagonistic. Even saying all of this, I never got bored reading about anyone in this book.

While I wasn't crazy about all of the characters, I did enjoy seeing the main sapphic relationship develop throughout the story. Their dynamic had just the right amount of tension to keep me waiting for something to finally happen between them. When something finally did happen, it met my expectations and felt like a genuine development for the two characters. The platonic and familial relationships were all handled pretty well too. There may have been a lot of drama and miscommunication, but the extent that which everyone cared about one another was very clear to see. These strong relationships made certain events in the event pretty hard to read, even without feeling that emotional development in each individual character.

I listed a lot of criticisms about this book, but I still overall genuinely enjoyed reading this. I flew through this story in just a few sittings solely because the near-constant drama kept me interested and I never wanted to put the book down. The author is also clearly talented and I would love to pick up more books by her in the future. With the characters being the main flaw in this book for me, which in a book retelling The Great Gatsby isn't terribly surprising, I can see future books written by her not having this same issue.

Overall, I would give this book 3.5/5 stars. It's definitely worth checking out if you're interested in atmospheric witchy vibes and sapphic (though messy) relationships!

I enjoy this author's writing style and felt like the imagery was very immersive. The overall ambiance of the story is dark, morose, and gothic and I really loved that. The magical system had a lot of potential but it wasn't as cohesive as I think it should have been.

This is a very slow paced book where our main character moves away from home to a coastal town where her estranged father lived and died. She goes to settle his estates and gets wrapped up in dark and dangerous magic which is illegal in this post war, Gatsby-eque era.

Our main character, Annie, is meek and timid and has little personality. Her "best friend", Bea, is one of the most unlikeable characters I've read in a while. Bea really has zero redeeming qualities. Our FMC's love interest, Emmeline, is probably the most dynamic character in the book but her choices throughout the book were really exasperating.

I didn’t enjoy myself as much as I thought I would. It took a long time for anything to happen like literally everything happened in the last 10% of the book and the build up was just a bunch of back and forth stream of consciousness type povs.

Thank you Netgalley for the advance e-copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

4.25*

I'm in love with the characters and the setting !! I love queer rep in historical fiction, and the magical aspect just added to the charm of the book. Emmeline and Annie were great mcs to read about.

The author describes this witchy sapphic historical fantasy as melancholy, and I agree with that assessment. In this spin on the glittering 1920s, witchcraft is largely illegal, not so much from ignorance but from the full weight of its dangers that were on display in The Great War. It's magic built on blood and debts, always dangerous and horrifying even at its best. Annie is drawn into this world on Crow Island, where the wealthy seek out magic with little fear of consequences. She's there to claim her inheritance, left by a father she barely knew. The splendor of her neighbor's magical next-door parties draws her in, as does her worry for Bea, a childhood friend who professes happiness in her new life even as something dark lurks just under the surface.

The first half of the book shows Annie at war with herself, the girl she's been vs the girl who could blossom on the island in all her magical, vicious glory. We also get to know Emmeline next door, whose parties serve an ulterior motive, a purple light shining across the water to bring someone back, a debt left unpaid. In the second half... things go sideways. In many ways, it feels like the characters are either acting impulsively or reacting to consequences with no good options available. I spent a good portion of my energy on an exasperated "and WHY did you do that?" No cool heads are around to prevail. In the runaway train of disastrous happenings, the central sapphic romance develops on the periphery of other, darker emotions. I didn't dislike it, but I also wasn't overly invested due to the cacophony of goings-on.

The ending was a mixed bag for me. Some things had a resolution that felt settled, while others were a bit abrupt and lacking in the emotional oomph I would suspect. I also was surprised that I left without a clear idea of how magic worked in this world. I appreciate that the focus was more on the immediate details needed to follow the plot, but as a fantasy reader, I tend to want the broader picture to feel involved. This is not a bad book by any means. More sapphic fantasy is always needed, and there's nothing here I found problematic. It just didn't mesh well with my reading style. If you like darker strains of fantasy and don't need a lot of world-building or magic system details, you'll be good to go.

Thanks to Redhook for my copy to read and review!

I loved the descriptive writing in this one but unfortunately it was a little too eerie for me, I'm a lightweight!

Francesca May is the author of the lush and decadent Gatsby-inspired fantasy debut “Wild and Wicked Things”, a sapphic historical novel set in the 1920s.

Neither real magic nor faux magic interest Annie Mason. She’s a naive outsider and she’s on Crow Island to settle her late father’s estate and, hopefully, reconnect with her friend, Beatrice.

All the main characters are morally grey but there isn’t one antagonist. They antagonize each other consistently through the book. You don’t know who to trust or whether to put faith in any of the characters.

The villagers whisper about Emmeline Delacroix and her use of dark magic. It’s common knowledge she has a shady past and she is bootlegging magic. When Annie witnesses a confrontation between Bea and Emmeline at one of the island's extravagant parties, she is drawn into a glittering, haunted world. A world where the boundaries of wickedness are tested, and the cost of illicit magic might be death.

May began writing her fantasy novel as a YA book and soon realised it would become a crossover as it has a number of dark themes and there is a substantial list of trigger warnings.

“Wild and Wicked Things” is set in a glamorous world filled with magic, romance and murder and inhabited by people who make terrible decisions and have to live with the consequences. It’s a period thriller as rich in suspense as it is in ‘20s atmosphere.” The gothic in this book goes well beyond surface-level tropes. It’s dark and may just put a spell on you.

A huge thank you to @Netgalley and @orbitbooks_us for the ARC.

I enjoyed this. It was described as a sapphic, witchy, Great Gasby and, in my opinion, it lived up that. It was engaging, the characters were interesting, and I enjoyed the writing style. Overall, I really enjoyed this!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC!

Slowburn sapphic historical fantasy novel (in the author's own words)??? Um, yep - definitely gonna give that a chance. This book was inspired by The Great Gatsby, and the witchcraft and magic definitely fit into that description, which was so pleasant and nostalgic to read. I will say, when reading slowburn romance, I usually get frustrated at some point in the novel, just because I want to get to the point and I'm impatient ha ha. With a little bit of patience, though, you won't have a problem making it through this book! The plot is slow, yes, but it is also fairly constant, so any frustration I experienced was lessened significantly. This book was so well nestled in the Gatsby era, that it took a minute to return back to the real world once this was over ha ha. One thing I do want to note is that there are some pretty dark things that are talked about/happen throughout this book, so make sure you check content warnings!

I didn’t finish this book. The blurb sounded wonderful and interesting, but it wasn't what I expected.

The reasons I didn’t finish:
The beginning was slow and I couldn’t connect with any of the characters. The author tried to create suspense and story questions, but there was something lacking, and I couldn’t get into the characters or the story. I almost gave up about 20% in, but I decided to push past the setup and introduction. At around 40%, I decided this wasn’t for me.

However, Francesca May’s prose and descriptions are lovely. If you are interested in witches, magic, and the darker side of these things and if you don’t mind a slow paced book, which I suspect grows darker and darker, this might be the book for you.

I debated on how many stars to give this and decided on three because of the writing and subject—witches, magic, and dark magic.

I truly wanted to love this book as the the summery had everything I love in a book. Magic. Secrets. Great Gatsby Vibes. However it found it to be a slow to start read. I didn’t feel invested in the story and I continued to read I found that I didn’t care for the characters or the story itself. I pushed myself to finish the book but I would not read it again.

I was curious about this book after seeing it mentioned in general lit and specifically queer lit circles and decided to request the ARC based on liking the author's previous adult books.
It might be my own lack of familiarity with and interest in Gatsby but I didn't much care for this. The writing was good, simple and elegant, but I wasn't drawn to the characters or situation. I look forward to the author's next efforts but this one was just not for me.

A slow burn lesbian romance but the characters are fairy unlikeable. I thought I would identify most with Annie, and I suppose I did in the end, but she became annoying. The plot went around a few times, visiting the same places and themes before coming to an end. The end was fine and promised interesting things, but I’m not sure I would care to read them if they happened.

I loved the island and the atmosphere, the parties and the kazam, the outfits. But the round and round of the plot, how Bea had this secret past and she was basically reliving it, except that Arthur was abusive, it just didn’t work for me. The book felt very long at times, especially the middle portion. The exposition and the ending were enjoyable but the middle bits, especially those pertaining to the debt and how Bea and Emmeline were tied together, were incredibly slow, spending too much time dancing around the subject. Also, magic was well known in society, even banned because of how much power it had. I feel that this aspect wasn’t well explored, beyond outlawing magic and making Annie hesitant to explore that side of herself and anxious about being discovered. Even certain plants were banned because of their magical properties.

Overall, the world itself is more compelling than the characters, who quickly became unlikeable and even annoying. I love that there is sapphic romance, between more than one character, even, with some queer issues surrounding gender and gender roles, as well. I have high hopes for a future book from this author, for sure.

Thanks to Net galley and Orbit, I was given an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. The premise of the book was promising and was what interested me in it, but it seemed like a mix of Great Gatsby and Practical Magic. It's a decent enough book, just one I won't be rereading.

They said lesbian witches in the 1920s and gave me a pretty cover and I ran.

I’m not really sure what it was about this book, but I couldn’t really get into it. I was fully prepared to start shipping and screaming and overall getting really immersed in the aesthetic - because witches in 1920s England. But I didn’t.

I don’t understand why. Maybe it was my mental state, maybe I wasn’t in the mood, but I’m almost 74% sure it wasn’t actually the book’s fault that I couldn’t enjoy it.

The plot didn’t feel as exciting as I hoped it would. I was expecting intrigue from the romance, danger and suspense from the plot, and generally just a lot more intensity? I was promised a “bloodthirsty, glittering world” and most of what I got was Annie being indecisive and Emmeline being stressed.

Which, honestly, was a mood, because I am both of those things. But it didn’t give me a lot of the storyline that I’d been waiting for.

I didn’t have as much interest in the storyline as I should have. It felt predictable to me. Nothing was all that surprising and nothing really affected me emotionally. Even at the end, when character backstories and motivations had finally been laid out, I had been predicting most of it from the onset.

The world-building was really cool, incorporating witchcraft and magic into WWI-era history. Historical fantasies are generally interesting, and this followed the pattern. But the magic wasn’t explained to me very well.

I learned from Emmeline that blood magic is the most dangerous and potent type of magic, and she technically shouldn’t have been using it, but I didn’t learn about any of the other kinds of magic? I couldn’t really tell what Nathan or Isobel were doing with their magic or how it worked.

I also was given no information on what kazam was, aside from a magical drink. What did it do aside from get people both high and drunk? Was it just like a different, enchanted form of alcohol?

For something that was so emphatically illegal and important to the plot, I understood very little of the magic and the magic system.

For example, the moments (especially near the end) where the characters were in danger. I would usually find myself thinking, “well if they’re witches, couldn’t they just do x” or “why don’t they just y” and then learn more about the world-building and character flaws through their limitations.

However, with this book, those things didn’t occur to me. I thought it was a nice touch that the magic wasn’t something they could use as freely or with as much power as the regular witch books, but it kind of annoyed me that it played such a little role.

The characters were all great and I loved how distinct everyone was, but I also felt like they could have been developed a lot more. I kept expecting more layering and depth from each character, and I couldn’t find it as I read.

Annie specifically wasn’t my favorite protagonist. I loved that she started out as this naïve, clueless woman, because it was both realistic and something that I don’t see often, but I think a lot of the plot was devoted to what should have been her “development” that for me just wasn’t there. She was supposed to be growing and sort of waking up to the reality of how things are, and I just got a lot of indecision.

Emmeline was very interesting and I liked reading her perspective a lot more, but I think a lot of the problem was just that I didn’t care that much about each character? I didn’t really look forward to reading any of them.

The romance also was not the best. I was expecting some tension and intrigue and just…attraction? I don’t ship couples very much, but I was waiting to start rooting for Emmeline and Annie, and I never got around to doing that.

Their romance was mostly summed up by the magical tether that inexplicably bound them, which bugged me a bit. Why do they have this mystical connection, what does it do and why is their only reason to be attracted to each other?

I didn’t feel like either of them had a lot of chemistry and I didn’t care much about the romance. To me, it seemed like an actual developing relationship was being replaced just by mentions of their “bond” and the “tether” and the “inexplicable pull,” with not enough character involvement for me to see anything happen.

My favorite thing by far was the aesthetic. The atmosphere of Cross House and Crow Island was so compelling. I am a sucker for tarot cards and witchcraft-y things, and the writing and drama of the book really captured that perfect dark-and-slightly-unnatural vibe.

I was promised something “bloodthirsty and glittering” which wasn’t quite what I received, but it was very close and definitely enjoyable enough to make up for it.

Overall, this book didn’t do it for me, and I’m not entirely sure it was the book’s fault? I definitely was not connected to life for most of March and my reading habits have been all over the place, so my enjoyment of this book was definitely not proportionate to how good the book actually was.

Generally, my expectations were not met and I can’t figure out why.