Review & Guest Post: Witch Born

Witch Born (Witch Song #2) by Amber Argyle
Release Date ~ September 5, 2012
Starling Publishing
ISBN13:  9780985739409
E-galley received from author for my honest review

And you can read my review of the first book in the series, Witch Song, here!

Goodreads Synopsis:
Brusenna thought it was finished.
She defeated the Dark Witch, saving the Haven Witches from imprisonment and death. She found love and a place to belong.
She was wrong.
Haven is not the sanctuary it appears to be. Even love is in danger of slipping away like water through cupped hands.
Some things can't be saved.
A new threat merges with the old as the Witches’ dark history begins to catch up with them. Only Brusenna knows the extent of the danger and how to stop it, though doing so might cost her everything.
Including her life.
Will Brusenna be required to make the ultimate sacrifice?

Amber's first book Witch Song completely blew me away, and I was thrilled when I heard she had decided to write a sequel to an amazing book (that actually works well as a standalone, too). Witch Song is one of those rare books that's so unexpected, but in a GOOD way.

The first book was full of magical goodness, sweet romance, and incredibly deep character growth with a rather atypical brave heroine who decides to fight back - but Senna is nothing like what you expect at first and she grows in leaps and bounds. The same is true for Witch Born, although it improves in some areas I wished I had seen more of in Witch Song.

1. Interesting blend of magic, nature and music:
   
   The creativity of the magic involved in the Witch Song series is one of my favourite things - it's really cool to see how nature and music have such strong influences on the witches and their magic. And it puts a unique spin and limitations on the kinds of magic they can do.
2. Exciting world building:
   
   I was fascinated by the world Amber had created in Witch Song, but I was thrilled to see how important the setting became in Witch Born. And on top of that, we really get a good look at the world outside of Haven and learn so many secrets and mysteries that Senna had no idea even existed. It's exciting and helps bring the book to life!
3. Perfectly sweet romance:
   
   I adore Joshen and Senna (and Joshen, in particular. He's a great character!) - I loved that we got a much more personal look at their relationship, as things change between them. But I just love seeing how hard they work to overcome difficulties and how they aren't always acting like lovesick teens. There's a definite maturity to their relationship that's rare.

There were some romantic developments that I wasn't the biggest fan of, and some secondary plots that didn't get enough attention to be developed properly which ultimately left them feeling lacking. And there were so many times when Senna's decisions just didn't seem to be very careful - something that surprised me since she's such an intelligent and cautious character. And I also felt like the book had too much thrown into it, especially towards the end. There were a number of dramatic, tragic events that seemed to constantly be trying to one up each other. Instead, it made those parts of the story feel forced and as if the story was trying to force Senna into a tragic martyr role. But you just can't FORCE that, it needs to be done carefully.

So while I didn't love it as much as the first book, I was pleased to see that a few of the things I felt were missing in Witch Song were addressed in Witch Born. But I still highly recommend these books to fans of fantasy and witches in particular.

Purchase Links

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Guest Post by Amber Argyle

How hard was Witch Born to write compared to Witch Song?
I wrote Witch Song as a stand alone with sequel potential, which was all I ever wrote--you can't sell the 2nd book in a series, only the first. So I had very little experience writing sequels, which believe it or not, are a whole different animal from the first in a series. You ever read the first book and love it then read the second and feel like it was a waste of time? This is one of the biggest reasons why.

The second and third big reasons? Pressure and time. There's a ton of pressure for the book to be at least as good if not better than the first book. Add into that the MUCH shorter timeline to write, and you have a recipe for failure. Seriously, I wrote Witch Song in a month, but I edited it on and off for two years. That's a lot of time to edit and come up with brilliant ideas and see pitfalls after the fact.

Witch Song was finished and awaiting publication before I ever started writing the sequel. So I couldn't go tweak anything in the first book. I had to go with what already existed. Plus, some of the storylines were completely wrapped up, so I had to create new ones.  I had a pretty good outline of the last 200 hundred pages, but I couldn't figure out the first 100 or where exactly to start the novel. I rewrote the beginning a dozen times (wasting about 100 pages) before it finally clicked.

After I finally had the beginning down, I started on the second 2/3rds of the novel. It went much faster, but my deadline was coming faster than I could type it out (and I type 75 WPM). I buckled down and asked for help. A few friends helped watch my littlest, who is three. Still missed that dang deadline. By a whole month, I might add. By and large, my alpha and betas were awesome, putting aside their own projects to help me edit mine. Steve Diamond was AMAZING. The twists in the book wouldn't be nearly as good without his help. Seriously, if you don't have an awesome team behind you, the book will suffer a lot.

And you know what? Even with all of that pressure and stress and worry, I think I nailed it. Witch Born is better than the first book, which was always the goal.

Thanks for stopping by to share with us, Amber!

Witch Song

Witch Song by Amber Argyle
Release Date: September 1, 2011
Rhemalda Publishing
ISBN13: 9781936850167

5/5 Stars!

Goodreads Synopsis:
The world is changing. Once, Witch Song controlled everything from the winds to the shifting of the seasons--but not anymore. All the Witches are gone, taken captive by a traitor. All but Brusenna. As the echo of their songs fade, the traitor grows stronger. Now she is coming for Brusenna. Her guardian has sworn to protect her, but even he can't stop the Dark Witch. Somehow, Brusenna has to succeed where every other Witch has failed. Find the traitor. Fight her. Defeat her. Because if Brusenna doesn't, there won't be anything left to save.

Witch Song completely caught me off guard by how much I enjoyed it. I'll admit that the cover didn't really draw me in the way others do, but I was enamoured wtih Amber Argyle's creative world and story laced with adventure and love by the end of the book. The world of witches she created in Witch Song is reminiscent of a fairytale, with appropriate pacing and lovely descriptions, and even lovelier characters.

I am such a huge fan of the love story in Witch Song! I really, really enjoyed Senna and Joshen and all the difficulties they faced. And some of the decisions they made were so difficult, but very brave at the same. And I was glad to see that they didn't narrow in so much on their affection for each other to forget the world circumstances around them. The adventure and upcoming battle remains constant as the plot centrepiece, and it really should seeing as the possible destruction of the world is fairly important. Fairly. ;) And there is just enough heartbreak in there to twist your heartstrings a little bit. It doesn't hurt either that Witch Song has one of my favourite kissing scenes ever! My one teensy little annoyance with the love plot was how irrational Senna's jealousy could be at times. I don't mind a little bit of jealousy (because it is natural and understandable at times) but I just didn't see that she had anything to be jealous of- this was something that she had built up entirely in her head, and even if that is the case I tend to roll my eyes at characters when they do this.

As a character, I did not care for Pogg. At all. I've never been a fan of those quirky, eccentric creature sidekicks. I didn't like Dobby in Harry Potter, and I hated Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars. So needless to say, I didn't think Pogg added anything particularly important to the story rather than some extra magical help which could have been fulfilled by some other forgetful secondary character.

I did enjoy the long ending. I'm aware that some people might feel that the ending drags on for too long, but it actually does give the story a proper explanation and allows Argyle to fully flesh out the reasons behind the events which took place in Witch Song. However, there was one problem with the ending, over the obsession with not allowing marriage... well, it just seemed kind of silly to me. Maybe because it's a little too practical for my taste, but it all seemed like a silly show for nothing. That was disappointing.

I received a PDF copy from the publisher in exchange for my honest review; no other compensation was received.

...And I loved it so much that I had to buy a signed copy for myself and one to giveaway! I've already contacted the winner of my giveaway, and she has confirmed her prize. So congratulations to Marie! I'll be shipping that out to you shortly :)

Witch Song Giveaway!

A while back I was lucky enough to receive an e-book copy of Witch Song by Amber Argyle from Rhemalda Publishing. I wasn't too sure of what to think about it, but it did look like an intriguing read.

But it was soo good, and I loved it so much that I decided to pre-order two more signed copies from Rhemalda. Now unfortunatley, one of those signed copies is for me. But one of them is for one of YOU! Excited yet??

Alright, so giveaway details:
I have one signed copy of Witch Song up for grabs. Contest will close at 12:01 a.m. on August 30th when I will announce the winner later that day along with my review of Witch Song (and I will say that it earned 5 stars from me. It's GOOD).

This book is only open to US/Canada addresses because of shipping- annoying I know, but start September 1st I'm having another international giveaway here. Followed by another one right after that one finishes up.

If you do want to know more about it, I talked a bit about Witch Song in my If You Like... post.

And you can visit Amber Argyle's blog to read the first chapter!
And lastly, the book trailer for you!

Kindred reads {1}

You know when you read a book with a plot that you really enjoyed and you wonder what else like it might be out there for you?

This post is for you!

These books contain similar elements, whether it's content, writing, or other themes found in the stories.

If you like...
The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab

You might want to consider reading...

Entwined by Heather Dixon

Victoria Schwab has been praised for her lyrical writing and the fairytale atmosphere she created in TNW. Dixon's debut, Entwined, is striking in its own account with magical prose, some eerie twists and undertones, and fairytale vibes. While TNW only seemed to be reminiscent of folklore, Entwined is a more obvious retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, but a truly compelling and creative one.






Witch Song by Amber Argyle

Besides the obvious similarity of both Witch Song and TNW being about, well, witches, they also share a story of a young girl on a journey of self-discovery. Both main characters, both Brusenna and Lexi experience some extremely well-paced character development as they mature into young women (and save the world and all that jazz, too).






Are there any other books you find to be similar to any of these? Any books you'd like to see some similar recommendations for?