The Lost Witch

The Lost Witch is a character driven fantasy tale by Paige Crutcher. Released 27th Dec 2022 by Macmillan on their St. Martin's Press imprint, it's 320 pages and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. 

This is an Irish mythos based fable with original twists, built up quite skillfully. The writing is contemplative and the pacing, at times, ponderous. It never fails to be readable, but it is deliberate and might prove challenging for fans of very fast action driven stories. 

The main themes of evil vs good, light and darkness, play out across a dual time-line story in 1922 and the current day. There are curses and time-slips, and a protagonist who can't remember how she traveled from 1922 to 2022 and unleashed a curse which she needs her descendant's help to unravel. 

The first 40%+ of the book is chaotic and quite choppy. The author is certainly adept enough that it's clearly intentional. Once the readers finds their way into the story, the vistas open out and it's more or less smooth sailing. The denouement and resolution surprised me quite a lot and were much better and more satisfying than anticipated.  Although it's not derivative at all (and in a completely different setting), there were some flashes of Outlander and readers who are very fond of Gabaldon's series will probably find a lot to like here.

Three and a half stars. 

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.