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Book: “Tonight, I Burn” by Katharine J. Adams
Publishing Info: Orbit, October 2023
Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!
Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound
Book Description: A thorn witch with the power to walk between the realms of Life and Death finds herself at the center of a magical rebellion—and a dangerous romance—that could destroy her coven and her soul in this dark and decadent debut.
Thorns, Tides, Embers, Storms, and Ores. All five covens are bound in servitude to the tyrant High Warden of Halstett.
Penny Albright is a daughter of the thorn coven, forced to patrol the veil between the realms of Life and Death. Each night, one thorn witch—and only one—must cross the veil by burning at the stake. Each morning, that witch draws on their magic to return. Failure to follow the rules risks the veil and risks them all.
But one morning, Penny’s favorite sister Ella doesn’t return. And that night, determined to find her, Penny breaks the rules. She burns in secret. And she discovers that all isn’t as it seems in Life or Death.
Her journey leads her to Malin, a devastating lord with too many secrets; to Alice, a mysterious captive prophet; and to a rebellion brewing in the shadows beneath the city. And as Penny’s world splits, she’ll face a devastating choice. Because it’s not just her sister’s life that hangs in the balance. It’s the fate of all magic.
All it takes is one witch—and one spark—to set the world ablaze.
Review: I’ve read a number of witch books this fall and mostly enjoyed them all! Of course, it is the time of year for this type of book, but it also seems that there is a current trend in YA and adult fantasy towards these types of stories recently. That being the case, I was excited to check out this book that promised an intricate new world, darker thematic content, plus a swoon-worthy romance! Unfortunately, while I think it might work well for other readers, I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I had hoped.
But let’s start with the positives. Right there in the premise the book is setting up a truly dark existence, one in which a witch must be burned at the stake every night to patrol the realm. Yes, they are meant to come back to life the next day, but that does very little to combat the true horror of a death in that manner every night. This was such an interesting concept to begin with. Added on top of that you have the mystery of why one witch fails to return which propels the action of our heroine. It’s an excellent set up and I was quickly pulled into the general concept of the story.
However, as the book progressed, I began to struggle. First with the heroine herself and then with the romances as they were introduced. Fairly quickly, I began to feel frustrated with Penny and some of her decision making. It felt at times that she was simply doing things to prove that she was doing something in the first place, rather than for any true reason. Moments like this left me with the impression of her as a fairly immature character. Again and again she received praise for making decisions that were, on their face, pretty bad.
And then we get into the romance and the love interests. So, I’ll be honest, part of this is on me in that I read the book description and didn’t pick up on the fact that this was a polyamory story. In my defense, I don’t think it’s super obvious in the summary either. But either way, as a reader I often struggle to enjoy polyamory stories. That being the case, I usually avoid them simply so I don’t have a host of middling to negative reviews here on the blog of a subgenre that I know others enjoy but just aren’t for me. Know thyself and all of that.
This book does a good job (back hand compliment time!) in highlighting one of my struggles with this type of romance: it’s hard enough to write a solid, fully-fleshed out love story between two characters in the page count of a single book; thusly, it’s almost impossible to do justice to three characters and two love stories within the same number of pages. And here, like in so many other instances, I simply couldn’t become invested in these romances. Sure, they were each attracted to each other. But beyond that? I never felt like any time was given to why these characters were falling for one another, what true connections bound them together other than the fairly rote parallels between Penny’s powers and the fact that one love interest represents Death and the other Life. Beyond that, I personally just don’t enjoy polyamory romances, so this was probably never going to be a great success for me. But for readers who do enjoy these stories, this might still work, though objectively, in this case, I still think the love stories themselves were fairly watered down to simple attraction and not much else.
Overall, I really enjoyed the world-building and magic of this world, but I struggled with the main character and the romances too much to truly enjoy this book. But if you’re a fan of polyamory stories and want to check out an interesting, fresh take on witches and witch burning, this might be a good book for you!
Rating 6: Not to my taste, but it did offer some interesting fantasy concepts that I’d never come across before!
Reader’s Advisory:
“Tonight, I Burn” isn’t on any Goodreads lists, but it should be on Vampires and Werewolves and Witches…Oh My!
The Library Ladies 