Witch Book

by Linda Nelson

[inlibrisveritas]

This is the second book in the Orgarlan Saga. I received the first one through Goodreads and I reviewed it here, Aaron and Keja. If you notice a gave that one a single star rating…and any normal reader wouldn’t read the second one if you didn’t enjoy the first one. I get that, but I’m weird. I HAVE to read the whole series once I start it, it’s a compulsion I can’t shake. At any rate this book is actual a bit better than the first one, but only just.

Witch Book is labeled as a stand-alone so it’s not a requirement to read the first one, however I think it probably helps some with the background and character relations. The main characters from the first one never interact with the main characters of this one, but I’d say read the first one anyway just so you know what to expect. The writing in this one is a bit better, it’s still very simple but it’s not as stiff as the first one…and I didn’t notice any tense change in this either. So that’s certainly an improvement. I can say that I am a bit disappointed that this one never really mentions the other characters in depth from the previous book, there were some relationships that I would have liked to see grow some. Though I do understand that this is happening around the same time as the previous plot, so there can’t be much to expand upon. I still appreciate the uniqueness of her “good” and “bad” species, typically the elves are good and the Orcs are bad but not in this case. It’s different. I liked the idea of witches having familiars like demon imps, and I wish that it would have gone into why exactly but I still found it rather cool.

Monika is an interesting and fairly likeable main character, but I found her counterpoint Darmin to be very odd to read about. Monika is a bright girl who is eager to please and pretty brave considering what she knowingly has to go up against. If it were my job to gather things in the forest while there is a giant lizard monster living there you can be certain that your items would never be gathered, ever. Darmin however is a crafty young woman that has huge ambitions…however her character as a whole seemed oddly thought out. I didn’t get why she would wait a week before trying to get rid of the girl she wants gone when she has tons of opportunity to do it before then. You live in the same house and no one else is a around, it doesn’t make sense to wait until the girl is suspicious. Her plans are kind of backwards. Also this book has the worse case of insta-love I’ve ever seen, Darmin and the king fall in love and make plans for their future in the matter of a few pages. The build up between Darmin and Monika is pretty strong but the epic battle never actual comes to fruition, so hopefully in the third one all of this will link together. It does mention that Monika will meet up with Aaron and help her so maybe the third one holds more answers.

Overall it’s a short and kind of relaxing read. It doesn’t take anything out of you to read it and it gave my mind some down time during a readathon.