Trial By Fire (Covencraft, #1)

by Margarita Gakis

[leahrosereads]

3.5 Stars

I received a copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

When receiving novels for free, I try to be considerate of the fact that I’m receiving it out of the goodness of the author's heart. So, I will usually pick genres that I’m sure I’m going to enjoy. If not, I’ll pass and let another reviewer go for the book. This is YA and had magic, and I thought that’d be enough for me. Unfortunately it ended up being pretty meh to me.


Trial by Fire follows Jade, a young woman coming into her magic later in life. She didn’t grow up with a coven, and she would definitely not consider herself a witch. However, she’s setting fires when she’s angry, so you know, becoming a witch is happening to her. In her world, there are rules when it comes to magic and witches, namely that the magic can’t be unsanctioned and witches need to be a part of covens. Because her powers are just now happening to her, Jade was unknowingly using her magic and was considered a rogue witch. Enter Paris.

He’s the leader of a coven and is sent by The Council to collect and have Jade join his coven, or be stripped of her powers. Paris finds and brings Jade to his Coven, and then the plot thickens.

Someone at the Coven is mighty jealous of Jade’s immense powers, and while she’s unfocused and untrained, the jealous bitch...witch, has decided to work with a demon and take said powers from Jade. Now, I’ve seen enough Supernatural to know that working with demons never works out well for anyone.

Jade, Paris and a couple of other witches Jade meets at the Coven (the awesome Henri and Callie) must research and stop this witch from taking her powers. They work together to keep the demon at bay, keep Jade alive, and try to figure out what the hell is going on.


Sounds decent enough, and it was an OK story. Trial by Fire is not the best written novel that I’ve read, nor are the plots or characters all that unique, but it kept me relatively entertained.

Likes
--YA but no romance!
--The OCs - Henri and Callie were excellent, and I loved them.
--Paris - a bit of an uptight, old fashioned witch, but I liked him.
--The banter. There’s some good dialogue that kept me grinning; Jade definitely has a decent personality.
--Seth - a demon that helps Jade out.

Dislikes
--Jade is just so super unique. She’s a special snowflake - learns magic uber quickly, has a photographic memory, easily the most powerful witch at the Coven with absolutely no training, has a secret past that’s completely damaged her - you know, the traditional Mary Sue. I hated it, and by extension, her. That type of character building absolutely destroyed any likability for Jade that I could of had.
--Background information - Normally a first book in a series has world building but Trial by Fire was absolutely lacking here.
--Formatting - I received this copy as a PDF, and the formatting was a bit wonky for me. I couldn’t read it on my tablet which was a bummer, and on the computer the paragraphs were still kind of scrunched together, no spacing in between them. Sometimes chapters would begin at the very bottom or a page. It was just an awkward reading experience, visually.



Ending thoughts: I’ve read more interesting YA this year, but this was decent. If you like fantasy/witch based novels, maybe give it a shot. I’m personally not sure if I’ll continue the series. It had an interesting ending, and if I cared more about Jade, I’d have absolutely been hooked, but I don’t, so I’m not.