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| The Iron Witch (The Iron Witch #1) by Karen Mahoney |
"Freak. That's what her classmates call seventeen-year-old Donna Underwood. When she was seven, a horrific fey attack killed her father and drove her mother mad. Donna's own nearly fatal injuries from the assault were fixed by magic—the iron tattoos branding her hands and arms. The child of alchemists, Donna feels cursed by the magical heritage that destroyed her parents and any chance she had for a normal life. The only thing that keeps her sane and grounded is her relationship with her best friend, Navin Sharma.
When the darkest outcasts of Faerie—the vicious wood elves—abduct Navin, Donna finally has to accept her role in the centuries old war between the humans and the fey. Assisted by Xan, a gorgeous half-fey dropout with secrets of his own, Donna races to save her friend—even if it means betraying everything her parents and the alchemist community fought to the death to protect."
Rating:
Iron Witch had started out nicely. I was drawn to it instantly. But as I progressed through the pages, I felt that the story itself hadn’t given me much to think about. The details were somewhat shallow and incomplete. I understand that the author was going for a bit of mystery with what was going on with the protagonist’s heritage but I feel there wasn’t much mystery to begin with. I get the whole doubt with the rules of the alchemy-group, but there aren’t any solid doubt-building situations that happened in the book. In fact, there weren’t any at all. It was simply stated that Donna was in doubt. Period.
And don’t get me started with the characters; their personalities were just so vague and underdeveloped. I don’t understand how a faerie queen would turn out to be stupid. I mean, over every faery book I’ve read, faeries are clever and deceitful. They can be outsmarted, yes, but this was just an insult to the record that faerylore has beautifully crafted over the years. You’ll get my point when you read this book.
Another thing that bothered me was the love interest. I know there’s such a thing with books about “love at first sight” but finding someone being damaged as you were isn’t enough reason to be deeply attached to the person. There has to be something else way more reflective to look at that would make the romance believable. I just don’t get it.
I don’t get a lot of things, really!
I don’t usually go full-bluster over anything I read because I’ve always tried to keep an open mind about everything, but this was just messy. It was engulfed with clichés that would’ve been bearable if given the right twists and turns. However, I do stand by what I said that this book has potential but I feel that it lacked the sense of adventure and mystery that it could have wowed the readers with.
