So Bookalicious!: Review: Witch Finder (Witch Finder #1) by Ruth Warburton

Sunday, 23 March 2014

Review: Witch Finder (Witch Finder #1) by Ruth Warburton

Synopsis

London. 1880. In the slums of Spitalfields apprentice blacksmith Luke is facing initiation into the Malleus Maleficorum, the fearsome brotherhood dedicated to hunting and killing witches.

Luke's final test is to pick a name at random from the Book of Witches, a name he must track down and kill within a month, or face death himself. Luke knows that tonight will change his life forever. But when he picks out sixteen-year-old Rosa Greenwood, Luke has no idea that his task will be harder than he could ever imagine.

- Goodreads -

Opinion

At first you might think that there is nothing special about this book. Witchcraft, star-crossed lovers,… Witch Finder had it all. But somehow I had a click with this book. I instantly liked the main characters Rosamund (Rose) and Luke. They are from a very different background but at the same time they are a lot alike. They were both punt into a situation they didn’t entirely like, they both didn’t have a place that they could call home even though they both had a house to live in and a family. But what I admired the most about Luke and Rose were there strength. They both were under a lot of pressure to do things differently but they were determined that they what they were doing was right no matter what other might think or do. And in the end they were.

There wasn’t an instant love connection when they first met, they even didn’t like each other when they first met because they were full of prejudices about each other. They grew on each other throughout the book and we got to see how they let go of all their prejudices one by one.
All the other characters, the good and the bad ones, were portrayed well. Rose’s family was horrible and I can only hope that they get what they deserve in the end. Luke’s only living family member, his uncle, on the other hand was a nice men and he would do about everything to protect his nephew even at his own cost. I do hope that they get reunited in the end.

The setting of this book was also ideal for me, I love Victorian England and I can’t get enough of it. So that was one of the reasons why I picked up this book in the first place. I loved how the author showed the different layers of society in that period, from to poorest to the richest. The other reason why I decided to read this book was the cover, it’s so beautiful that I can’t get enough of it and it represents the book well.

The book was fast paced and there wasn’t a dull moment in this book. But I would have loved to have a bit of background information on the witches ‘cause I felt a little lost at times. Now I know that the author wrote another series about witches so maybe I should read that one to learn a bit more about the witches. A highly enjoyable book and I can’t wait till the next book in this series comes out. In the meantime I will have to read her other series, the Winter Trilogy.