Review: The Witch’s Diary or a witchy October reading!

Hello people! It seems like I was in need of some time off. It was quite a stressful period, and even if it is not over, I think I am slowly back to normal. Or at least, I want to blog again, and this is something! I would talk about the news on Sunday, but for now I am back with a review, yay!

Thanks to the Tyche Books, I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Title: The Witch’s Diary
Author: Rebecca Brae
Publication Date: September 22nd, 2020
Page Count: 308

The higher you fly, the farther you fall. And I’d be surprised if the grubs in the Ascariim deep mine didn’t hear my splat.
Hester Wishbone has it made. A recent graduate of Grimoire College, she has a great job as a village hag and is eagerly awaiting the arrival of her familiar. She is also well on the way to earning her Adept Witch designation.
But her perfect life starts to unravel. After an unfortunate incident involving a flammable prosthetic nose, Hester loses her job. Her assigned familiar turns out to be a cockroach. And her magick seems to be well and truly gone.
With time running out on her Adept qualification period, Hester embarks on an epic job search. Her quest takes her to sticky gingerbread houses, dank bogs, and even the dreaded Outerplane (which is a Level 7 Magick Null Zone). Through it all, Hester must figure out what kind of witch she is, if she has no magick.

This was a totally unplanned reading, but it was a nice one. It is like a cozy mystery without the mystery part. If this can make any sense to you. It is the right book if you want to cuddle up with a cup of hot tea (or chocolate, why not!) and something lighthearted and fun.
It is about personal growth, and it is about finding our place in the world. And our MC, Hester, is quite something. She is soft-hearted, she values the people around her, and she try to see the best in everything. And she has some interesting friends. The author has create a really imaginative world, full of interesting and new things and characters. And some of them are… peculiar.
The only downside of Hester is that she never shut up. Never ever. And it sounds a tad strange, because is she who is narrating the story so obviously she can’t just stop talking, now can she? But really, she is so chatty that I wished for some quiet during the reading. And it wasn’t a major drawback, I appreciated the reading, so I am not really complaining but… yes, but I was in need of some silence from time to time, because she was constantly going on and on.

Another thing that wasn’t perfect is the structure of the book. It is nothing major, again, but the book seems quite divided in two parts, where the first one is just a long introduction for the second one. You just know, as soon as you hit this second part that this is really it, that this is what the story is really about, all the things you read before that were just there to make this one happens. And it is not bad, but it is roughly done.
But this aside, the plot is enjoyable, and we get to see how this magical world function, and which creatures inhabit it.

This was a fast reading, full of heartwarming moment and great friendship, even if not all of them are easy, and it was a nice change of pace. If you are in need of something a bit different, with some feelings to it, and some fun, this could be the right book for you!

and half!

What about you? Have you read this book? Or are you intrigued by it? Let me know!

Happy reading!
S.