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Annie Mason has led a quiet and ordinary life. When her estranged father dies shortly after the end of World War I, she reluctantly travels to Crow Island to take care of his estate. The island also happens to be the very place her former best friend, Bea, resides in a fancy house on the sea with her new husband. Crow Island is famous across the land for its faux magic parlors and fake spells and potions, but Annie soon learns that its inhabitants also practice true, darker-than-imagined magic. When she rents a summer cottage next to the infamous Cross House, where a coven throws lavish parties that feature Prohibited magic, Annie is given an opportunity to find a place—and maybe a person—that actually feels like home. A beautiful setting, wonderful prose, and a magical world with a lot of darkness surrounding it. It's The Great Gatsby meets Practical Magic with some great witchy vibes, some dark atmosphere, and a little bit of romance. Thanks Orbit Books for the gifted read!
The book in short was weak, slow placed and by the end, completely uninteresting. There was a peak in the second half when it started to get interesting but the endless monologuing grew tiresome and the ending didnt provide any form of satisfaction or care for the characters. It was just all too easy without having really been thought through. When she witnesses a confrontation between her best friend Bea and the infamous Emmeline Delacroix at one of Emmeline's extravagantly illicit parties, Annie is drawn into a glittering, haunted world. A world where magic can buy what money cannot; a world where the consequence of a forbidden blood bargain might be death.
A deep, sensuous exploration of the bonds between three very different, complex women that readers won't soon forget." — Gwenda Bond, New York Times bestselling author The world-building was really cool, incorporating witchcraft and magic into WWI-era history. Historical fantasies are generally interesting, and this followed the pattern. But the magic wasn’t explained to me very well. Which, honestly, was a mood, because I am both of those things. But it didn’t give me a lot of the storyline that I’d been waiting for.
May seamlessly transports readers to the shores of Crow Island, straight into the shoes of Annie and de facto coven leader Emmeline Delacroix. Annie is whisked away by the island’s enchantment, and May’s prose echoes F. Scott Fitzgerald to capture the finery and wild parties of the era. And while Annie originally thinks she’s being bewitched by the coven’s magic or the island, she comes to realize that she is simply following her innermost desires. The supposedly cursed island gives her time and space to come to terms with grief over lost loved ones and her internalized shunning of her sapphic sexuality. Emmeline’s inexplicable and undeniable magnetism is a clever plot complication but also the perfect setup for a passionate, slow-burning queer romance that feels forged in destiny. It is incredibly difficult for me to say a bad word about a novel so openly queer and magical, but I must admit that Annie and Bea often fell flat for me. Because of the nature of their separate arrivals on Crow Island, we are given very little information about their pasts, which sometimes made it difficult to relate to or root for them. That said, the luscious scenery and deeply imagined magic system of the book made these only minor complaints, and Emmeline and her housemates more than made up for the staleness of their supporting characters. Simply put, this is a ravishing and unforgettable portrayal of witchcraft --- and even more important, the women who practice it --- that is ultimately more than the sum of its parts: a sapphic, gender-queer GREAT GATSBY with an undercurrent of raw, violent magic. What more could you want?
TLDR: While this is a historic fantasy, and has a Gatsby feel, the witch story also reminded me of a more depressing Practical Magic (movie version). If you are a fan of either of those, this book might be for you. As a very character driven reader, I had trouble connecting to this story because of not liking the characters but this author definitely has talent and the book was well written. I don’t understand why. Maybe it was my mental state, maybe I wasn’t in the mood, but I’m almost 74% sure it wasn’t actually the book’s fault that I couldn’t enjoy it. When they do meet, they have an instant connection that neither can understand. In addition to this mysterious magical bond that the two have, Emmeline and Annie find out they also have Bea in common. Bea was Annie’s friend from home who ran away and ended up on Crow Island where Emmeline befriended her and took on a great magical debt to get her married to Arthur, whether Arthur wanted to marry Bea or not. In the 1920s, a lush, decadent gothic tale unfolds as a young woman slips into a glamorous world filled with illicit magic, tantalizing romance, and murder. On Crow Island, people whisper that real magic lurks just below the surface. But she never expected her enigmatic new neighbour to be a witch. After witnessing a confrontation between her best friend Bea and the infamous Emmeline Delacroix at one of Emmeline’s extravagantly illicit parties, Annie is drawn into a glittering haunted world. A world where magic can buy what money cannot; a world where the consequence of a forbidden blood bargain might be death.
The characters were all great and I loved how distinct everyone was, but I also felt like they could have been developed a lot more. I kept expecting more layering and depth from each character, and I couldn’t find it as I read. There were a lot of subplots that didn't seem fully fleshed out, and left me feeling unsatisfied come the end. On Crow Island, people whispered, real magic lurked just below the surface. But Annie Mason never expected her enigmatic new neighbour to be a witch.I also enjoyed the choice of era—at the height of decadence and wealth in an alternate 20th C USA, as it’s loosely based in The Great Gatsby there were a few similarities (the light that Emmeline looks out at mirroring Jay Gatsby as does the shirt scene and the yellow car.) Although the writing is beautiful, I felt distant from the characters. Not many of them were particularly likeable, even knowing their origin stories. Usually, I don’t mind reading from unlikeable characters pov’s if they are interesting, but with this one, they felt one-dimensional. However, with this book, those things didn’t occur to me. I thought it was a nice touch that the magic wasn’t something they could use as freely or with as much power as the regular witch books, but it kind of annoyed me that it played such a little role. For something that was so emphatically illegal and important to the plot, I understood very little of the magic and the magic system. Annie specifically wasn’t my favorite protagonist. I loved that she started out as this naïve, clueless woman, because it was both realistic and something that I don’t see often, but I think a lot of the plot was devoted to what should have been her “development” that for me just wasn’t there. She was supposed to be growing and sort of waking up to the reality of how things are, and I just got a lot of indecision.
I also was given no information on what kazam was, aside from a magical drink. What did it do aside from get people both high and drunk? Was it just like a different, enchanted form of alcohol? The slowness of the book works like a charm (no pun intended), because of May’s writing style. There’s no other word to describe it but lush. It shines like a diamond, every sentence somehow more beautiful than the last. Some descriptions feel truly otherworldly, while others forcefully bring you to the pain & dirt of everyday life. The stylistic choices help create the atmosphere of the scenes themselves. I was promised something “bloodthirsty and glittering” which wasn’t quite what I received, but it was very close and definitely enjoyable enough to make up for it. Yet Crow Island is brimming with temptation, and the most mesmerizing may be her enigmatic new neighbor.While the story is supposed to be loosely based on The Great Gatsby, I think that this was more loosely based on Practical Magic. I loved that it takes the same approach with that movie; where there's this plot happening with Bea and her husband Arthur, but there's an even bigger plot about magic, Annie and Emmeline's pasts, and how all that plays out throughout the story. This tale alternates between Annie and Emmeline’s perspective with a few others here and there. The writing style is very atmospheric and captures the era well. Bea, much like Daisy in Gatsby, is an intentionally frustrating character—one who whines and moans and justifies her horrific decisions because Love. Like Daisy, Bea also takes no action on her own to fix her situation but relies on Annie and Emmeline to enable her and fix her mistakes. Those two, however, make all the wrong choices, and things get worse in a Practical Magic-like fashion, building up to a dark and stormy climax near the end. Likewise, Emmeline is a complex woman, tortured by her past and haunted by her future. She’s strong but vulnerable, with a reputation as an Anne Lister-like sort; corrupting young women and ensnaring them into her cult of personality (if, of course, you believe the rumours). Naturally, the truth isn’t quite as clear-cut as that.
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