Review: Witches of East End

Review: Witches of East End

Title: The Witches of East End

Author: Melissa de la Cruz

Publisher: ebook

Pages: 224

Rating: *****

Review Source: Purchased on my nook

Back of Book Synopsis: (from Goodreads.com) 

From the author of the highly addictive and bestselling Blue Bloods series, with almost 3 million copies sold, comes a new novel, Melissa de la Cruz’ s first for adults, featuring a family of formidable and beguiling witches.

The three Beauchamp women— Joanna and her daughters Freya and Ingrid— live in North Hampton, out on the tip of Long Island. Their beautiful, mist-shrouded town seems almost stuck in time, and all three women lead seemingly quiet, uneventful existences. But they are harboring a mighty secret— they are powerful witches banned from using their magic. Joanna can resurrect people from the dead and heal the most serious of injuries. Ingrid, her bookish daughter, has the ability to predict the future and weave knots that can solve anything from infertility to infidelity. And finally, there’s Freya, the wild child, who has a charm or a potion that can cure most any heartache.

For centuries, all three women have been forced to suppress their abilities. But then Freya, who is about to get married to the wealthy and mysterious Bran Gardiner, finds that her increasingly complicated romantic life makes it more difficult than ever to hide her secret. Soon Ingrid and Joanna confront similar dilemmas, and the Beauchamp women realize they can no longer conceal their true selves. They unearth their wands from the attic, dust off their broomsticks, and begin casting spells on the townspeople. It all seems like a bit of good-natured, innocent magic, but then mysterious, violent attacks begin to plague the town. When a young girl disappears over the Fourth of July weekend, they realize it’s time to uncover who and what dark forces are working against them

With a brand-new cast of characters, a fascinating and fresh world to discover, and a few surprise appearances from some of the Blue Blood fan favorites, this is a page-turning, deliciously fun, magical summer read fraught with love affairs, witchcraft, and an unforgettable battle between good and evil.

My Thoughts:

This is the first book I have read by Melissa de la Cruz and I have to say she has the potential to become one of my favorite authors. I have always been fascinated by stories about witches, probably because of the history and mythology that accompanies them. The story was very fast paced and the mythology, past and current events in the book all flowed well together. I was consistently trying to figure out what would happen next and there were definitely some good twists and turns that I had not been expecting. Like in Spiral X you did not quite know which characters were good or bad (or you were pretty sure you knew only to be shocked with a reversal of roles. There was suspense generated by the fact that I was wondering whether or not they were going to get discovered as witches and the possibility of another Salem Witch Trial type event happening because of it, and because of the love triangle between Freya her fiancée Bran and his brother, Killian, and there are strange and sinister occurrences happening in the town: animals are dying, someone is murdered, a girl disappears, and there is a silvery oil spill threatening to destroy the ocean that provides a lot of the revenue for the town, that keep the suspense high.

The Beauchamp witches definitely have a lot of history. They are immortal witches who, because of what happened to them during the Salem Witch Trials, caused the practice of magic to be banned. Their history of witchcraft is different than most others I have seen; instead of being related to Celtic mythology, or Wicca based, Norse mythology is their background. So it was very interesting to read about Norse mythology, which I was not very familiar with and it was also kind of refreshing to have a different take on how witches came to be.

I loved all of the characters, I think they all fit very well together and played off each other well. Joanna is the matriarch of the Beauchamp family. She can heal people and bring the dead back to life. She has had a lot of sorrow in her life: she had to watch her daughters hang during the Salem Witch Trials (even though they are immortal they still die, they are just reborn again,) she lost her son and her relationship with her husband disintegrated. She is the last of the three witches to start using her powers again. She starts using them to entertain her housekeeper’s son and she becomes a sort of a grandmother for him. It is really sweet the way they interact.

Freya is my favorite character because she is the least perfect of all of the characters. Her moods affect her environment and because of the tension caused by the Bran/ Killian situation, the bar where she works has some pretty interesting events occur especially after she starts making love potion mixed drinks (like an almost 3 day long Bacchus like party.) She is involved in some pretty steamy scenes with both Bran and Killian (a lot with Killian)

Ingrid is the librarian at the local library and she is the first one to use her magic, which is a surprise because she is the most reserved of the characters. She discovers something strange about the Gardiner house and is elemental in unraveling the larger mystery in the book. She is sort of uptight, getting her the cruel nickname Frigid Ingrid by a guy she turns down. She has her own romance problems and it was actually kind of painful for me to watch make a mess of her love life, but I was totally cheering for her.

Then there are the Gardiner boys who bring the sex appeal (lots and lots of sex appeal!)

I really enjoyed this book and I look forward to the next book in The Beauchamp Family series and I think that while I am waiting for it to come out, I am going to start the Blue Bloods series so I can get my de la Cruz Fix.

I would recommend this book for anyone who enjoys mysteries, books about mythology and witches, and for people who enjoy the books by Sarah Addison Allen.

I give it a *****