This story starts out in 1922, with a desperate Brigid who wanted nothing more than to be a mother. However, her Goddess doesn’t allow it because of Brigid’s role as a protector witch. So, in desperation she makes a deal with Luc, a Demi-god, who makes it happen. Time passes and her daughter falls ill. Brigid tries to save her and through her actions, is sent a hundred years into the future.

After the time jump, Brigid doesn’t remember many things and the story unfolds as we learn things along with Brigid to fill in her memory gaps. Luc is still around, and we have the addition of Finola & Ophelia. Fin is hilarious, and she runs a podcast with Ophelia. Those little snippets of their podcast are fun and break up the seriousness of the story a bit.

There were some repetitive moments, but I thought the writer uncovering things little by little was clever. I predicted a lot of the story, which may just be my love for folklore-type stories and this felt very much like a modern-folklore mix. Overall, an enjoyable read/listen. The narrator did a wonderful job setting the scenes and portraying the characters.

Loved the authentic narration and listeners will be transported to a magical place, but this was just not for me. There wasn't enough exposition as to why things are happening or why we should care about the characters.

This was an interesting one. I thought I would like this novel more, as I generally love witchy tales. I think my struggle with this book was the length of time it took to learn more about the characters. The jumping timeline in the story worked for the plot, but less so for the character development. I felt like I never truly connected with the characters.
However, the story itself was good, and the narrator was great.

This is a book that shows how narrow-minded ppl have been throughout time. I enjoyed the "time travel" aspect of this book. It's a different twist from your average "witchy", paranormal romance.

This was an audiobook by Paige Crutcher, Narrated by Aoife McMahon.

I loved Aoife McMahon voice for this book, it was perfect.

This was like an Irish fairy tale for adults. Haunting, full of love, loss, a goddess, a demi-God, monsters, good and evil witches. A whole cursed town. A witch so lost she's in a different time and has no memory of what caused her to be there.

This story is full of twists and turns. Lost memories and remembered nightmares.
Anger that's bright as a flame and love that surpasses everything.

It's a book you have to pay attention to. There were a few times I had to rewind parts to figure out how I was lost. I wasn't confused, though. The story just changed that quick.

This was a magical story, I really appreciate great characters and this was full of them. I will definitely listen to it again.

The dark witches voices were so crazy. My husband came out to the kitchen and said "your listing to some creepy s*it out here"!

I received this ARC from Macmillan Audio, St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

GENERAL INFO
Year Pub/Re Pub: 12/27/22

Book's cover: nice deep purple

Format: audiobook, narrator Aoife Crutcher

Source: arc provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Page Count: 9hrs 55 unabridged

Book's Price: $14.95 audiobook

Price I'd Value: $10

Setting: Evermore, Ireland 1922

Genre: Fantasy, Paranormal Romance

Tropes: Time Travel, amnesia, small town life

Standalone/Cliffhanger/Part of a Series: standalone

HEA/HFN ending: HEA

Epilogue Included: n/a

Character(s)POV Spoken: h Brigid

BOOK DESCRIPTION
Synopsis/Plot Summary: Brigid is a powerful witch and healer who yearns for a child. She doesn't believe in love or marriage. Luc Knightly, the mysterious leader of the Knightly coven, asks her for access to her mind, and he'll grant her wish. The goddess of the Lough (Lake) of Brionglo'id warns Brigid that she's dealing with unpredictable forbidden magic.
M/F-M/M-M/M/F-etc: M/F

Representation: POC, LGBTQ+

Contains Cheating: no

Contains Children: Dove- but at 12yrs old, she gets the wasting sickness, drinks from forbidden lake and disappears.

Flashbacks: plenty. There is a 100-year time jump, and Brigid has to adjust to 2022

Jealy/Possy/OTT H/h : Luc doesn't get OTT until the end, once Brigid gets her memory back.

Amount of Sex In The Book: 1 good scene between H/h.

Overall Smex Rating: 2

CHARACTER DESCRIPTION

Hero: Luc Knightly

Hero Description: Handsome, aristocrat. Always very seductive to Brigid. The powerful demigod of trickery who wants his birthright, control of the Lough.

Hero Likability Rating: 4

Hero loves books/writing: no

Heroine: Brigid Heron

Heroine Description: 33, A witch and healer who didn't get love from parents. Her mother died when she was a teen, and father was physically abusive. Brigid's older sister Agnes left her long ago because of it.

Heroine Likability Rating: 4

Heroine loves books/writing: yes, all chapters begin with something out of the goddess' book of spells

Secondary characters:
The goddess of the Lough-also named Brigid who she worships to become one of the 19 of the Eternal Flame.
Ophelia Gallagher- Brigid's niece
Finola McEntire-Ophelia's adopted sister, Brigid's niece

H /h RELATIONSHIP INFO
Endearments: n/a

OW/OM/Exes: Brigid mentions she prefers to be alone, but when she wants a lover, she takes one. No one special for either H/h

Cheating Before/During/Outside H/h Relationship: no

CONTENT WARNINGS/TRIGGERS: child abuse mentioned


AUTHOR OVERVIEW: Paige Crutcher-1st time author for me

PERSONAL OVERVIEW

Overall Rating: 3.5

Do You Recommend This Book: yes

Will You Re-read This Book: maybe

Would You Read More Books by this Author: yes

COMMENTS/NOTES: Luc dangles forbidden fruit in front of Brigid who can't resist. She doesn't realize how 1 choice effects another, and there are unimaginable consequences. Even Knightly admits things didn't go his way, and he lost his true love. In the end, there was no outside spell or power, but Brigid and Knightly themselves who get them what they want.

I received a complimentary copy of this audiobook. All opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

The Lost Witch follows the story of Brigid.Heron, a witch who gets lost in time., trying to save her daughter. When she comes back, 100 years in the future in 2022, she has lost most of her memories. She discovers that Evermore, her home, has been under siege, and it’s people trapped - a curse she helped release though she has no memory of it. With her descendants, Ophelia and Finola, she must fight to save her daughter - and break the curse. On top of it all, she must team up with a man she does not know if she can trust - Knightly, the leader of the coven which is trying to bring destruction to her home.

Overall, I’d rate this book 3.5 stars. I absolutely loved the narrator. - Aoife McMahon does an amazing job, and I their voice is wonderful.

The book itself is charming. The writing is very lyrical, which lends itself to the story overall. The imagery is wonderful - we are easily transported from 1922, to 2022, to a mystical faerie realm with no problems at all. The writing itself was beautiful, carrying us away into the story. There are monsters, madness, sadness, witches, magic, goddess, and myths abounding in this tale, and I think because of the writing, it seems all the more fantastical.

The characters are fun, especially Finola who is full of mischief and cheer. Brigid is quite different from many of the characters we tend to think of when we visit the early 1900s. She isn’t stoic, or uptight. She adapts to change easily, and is quick to snap back, and stand up for herself. Knightly is everything we could want in a dark, brooding mysterious love interest. - a demi-god, who longs for love and understanding. There is love, heartbreak, mystery, and challenging situations.

A few things that I will mention is that the plot kind of slows down a good bit around the middle. It is partly due to Brigid trying to remember things - she gets snippets of her memories as the book goes on, but it drags around her trying to remember everything. Another piece that was always odd was the sexual innuendos that would crop up - they just sounded off with the rest of the language, and the reading. I don’t mind them at all in general, it just always sounded oddly out of place.

I do think that one plot point is kind of brought up a lot to not have much resolution - Ophelia has a broken heart over a man on the island - and it comes up quite often. However, nothing happens one way or another with this, and it felt just out of place in the end for it to be mentioned so often.

Overall, I did enjoy the book. It ends happily as well, which is always important to me. I think I enjoyed it more via audiobook than I would have reading a physical copy. If you love myths, legends, witches and Ireland, you’ll love this.

📚🎧 Audio Book Review 🎧📚

The Lost Witch
Written by Paige Crutcher
Narrated by Aoife McMahon
published/produced by Macmillan Audio
👉🏻 Swipe for review!

Overall:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Story:
📘📘📘📘
Narration:
🎙🎙🎙🎙️🎙️

I love a book based on Irish folklore! This was a great story. I hope there are future books about Ophelia & Finola, it would be nice to have more backstory on the family. Aoife McMahon brought the story to a whole new level with her beautiful voice.

This was a richly atmospheric and enjoyable story, particularly on audiobook! I don’t normally have a format preference, but with accents and a podcast, the narration really enhanced the experience. I struggled a little with the echo production of the witches of Knight speaking simultaneously. I would have also liked more on the romance since I never got to see the couple fall in love, but it worked for the development of the plot. The ending gave me all of the warm fuzzies and cheesy grins, and the present day witches were such fun!

Audio: 👍🏼 (like)
Narrated by Aoife McMahon

Thank you Macmillan Audio for the advance reader copy via NetGalley! All thoughts are my own.

Stars: 3.75
Format: audio
Narrator: Aoife MacMahon

I read the first sentence of this summary and knew I had to read the whole story: "Brigid Heron is a powerful witch and healer in the seemingly lost, but charming small town of Evermore on a forgotten isle in Ireland."

Brigid is a witch living in 1922 Ireland. All she wants is to be a mother. She even goes as far as to ask her Goddess to bless her with a child. Although against her Goddess's advice, Brigid does eventually become a mom, living a magically beautiful life with her daughter for a decade.

One hundred years in the future, Brigid wakes from a strange sleep in the basement of her own home. She has no memory of time-traveling and is surprised to find two modern-day witches living in her house. Evermore is mostly the same except for the hordes of damned creatures crawling out of the lough.

Now Brigid has more than one goal: retrieve her memories, fight the creatures and their ruling witches, and lastly, figure out how this guy Luc Knightly fits into the picture.


The Lost Witch is labeled as a romance and while there is a romantic plot threaded through out, it didn't come across as the main story. At it's heart, The Lost Witch is about family, and of course, magic. I really enjoyed this story although I found the audio confusing at times because of the jumping between past/present/memory and occasionally visiting the astral plane. If I lost focus for a moment too long I sometimes didn't know "where" we were.
Aoife MacMahon is a phenomenal narrator though. I loved all the voices and accents, especially the voice of the Knightly coven.

So already knowing the story of Brigid and Lu Thai was a different spin on thing so it was interesting but I found once the story when on there wasn’t much that happened I think this has so much pontential and I wanted to love it but it didn’t his the mark

I wanted to like this book more I really did.
It had everything I wanted in a book with the retelling elements and the mythology elements, but something fell flat to me. I don't know if it was the memory loss gaps that threw off the pace or the snippets of the podcasts that threw me off but I struggled with this book. I think that there was just to much trying to go on in one book that would have been better stretched out between a few different stories.

I’m not sure what made this audio book worse, the horrible choice in narrator or the writing style. This book is more confusing than anything, you will find yourself constantly going back to figure out who is speaking. There was clearly a lot of time spent on the imagery and less on the development of the story through the characters voices. DNF’ed 45% of the way through.

A little fantasy, a little romance, a lot about family, both blood and chosen. Brigid, armed with the favor of the Goddess, was the guardian of Evermore. All she wanted was a child….. the reader fast forwards 100 years, and Brigid is still at Evermore, but everything is foreign. Luc Knightly was an intriguing character, and I loved getting to know Ophelia and Finola, two modern-day witches.

I have read many audiobooks, and I have never heard the overlapping of different voices as this one had. It was abrasive…. But for a reason as the four witches chimed in together.

Well done, fun and sweet.

There is a lot going on in here, to the point where I was losing track of the plot.
The characters were decent, the story was good, but it was too much going on to get fully invested in any one thing.
The narrator was awesome!
Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for my DRC.

DNF. :(

I really wanted to love this book, but we did not click. I still think it is written well and is the perfect fit for someone!! 3 stars for originality and writing.

This book had a lot of potential, but it never quite got to where I hoped it would. The island of Evermore off the coast of Ireland was, like most settings in Ireland, atmospherically perfect for a book about magic. The book follows Brigid Heron in 2 timelines: first her own storyline in 1922 and then later when she re-awakens in 2022.

In 1922, Brigid allows herself to be seduced by the Luc, the leader of a rival clan, in order to have a child that she dearly wants. When her child falls ill, she is wiling to do anything to save her. In 2022, she's working with her descendants to try and save Evermore from Luc's clan and figure out what happened in the past because she finds she has gaps in her memory.

The writing worked well for the 1922 timeline but felt stilted and out of place in 2022, which was frustrating as the book went on. Pacing was weird - it was very slow in the middle and I started to lose interest. World building was solid and enjoyable. The good vs evil plot line was well done.

The audiobook narrator's voice was perfect for this story and really amped up the atmosphere of the story.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin for the opportunity to read this ARC ahead of publication.

The Lost Witch had a concept that I found really interesting, but may have fallen short at times. Brigid doing whatever she could for her daughter, resulting in her disappearing for 100 years was a really cool way to bring her into the modern world. However, I struggled a bit since Brigid did not have her memories, to understand what exactly happened 100 years ago. I do with there had been more information both on what happened in 1922 before she disappeared, and of Luc's time in the 100 years that she was gone. I had a hard time trusting that he was sincere throughout the story.

I really loved the narrator of the story, and while there were things I wasn't thrilled about, the overall story was enough for me to give it 4 stars total. I would love to get a companion book of the other characters, or more of Luc.

The Lost Witch follows Brigid, a witch from 1922 who wakes up a century later with no memory of how she got there. I liked the contemporary aspect of this read along with the atmospheric writing. Some parts fell a bit flat for me, but I did really enjoy listening to this as an audiobook!

This was a standout paranormal romance that had a little bit of everything: fantasy, mystery, magic, gods, curses, lost daughters, time travel, walking dead/nightmare creatures and on and on! What starts off in the 1920s Ireland sees a woman making a Faustian bargain for a daughter only to have her snatched away and finding herself 100 years in the future in a town on the brink of being taken over by dark magic/the undead.

I enjoyed both storylines (past and present), the forbidden lovers angle and all the Bad ass modern day witch coven (lots of Buffy vibes in this book!). Great on audio (I especially enjoyed the creepy witches voices) and highly recommended for fans of books like Small town, big magic or any of Nora Roberts's witch series. Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for early digital copies in exchange for my honest review!