Author: Mona Hanna
Series: High Witch, Book One
Publisher: Mona Hanna
Publication Date: November 2012
Genre: Fantasy, Paranormal Romance,
Romance
Pages: 96
Book Description: Ariel is a High Witch, one of the most powerful witches in the world. There are only three like her in existence. She finally learns who she is, but immediately has to flee from a malicious warlock, out to claim her for his own. With Brayden, her new love by her side, she attempts to outwit the warlock, and the High Witch who protects him. But what will she do if she has to go through ‘The Test’?
*Book won through LibraryThing member giveaway in exchange for an honest review*
I was really excited to read this book because the description was intriguing and the cover was beautiful! Sadly, I was quite disappointed.
The Writing: The writing in this novella was okay. There was not much inherently wrong with it but there wasn’t anything special about it. There was also too much dialogue in my opinion. So instead of descriptive paragraphs, everything was being explained via conversations. There was one part of the writing I didn’t like and that was the sex/sexual scenes. I’m no noob to sexual scenes in romance novels. I’ve even written a few steamy scenes myself and am not awkward or annoyed by them. But these were uncomfortably odd. They were too filled with ‘oh I just love her so much I want to make love to her’ and it came to the point where there was a sex scene in almost all the chapters, probably ten in total. Yes, I realize this is a romance novel but that is just absurd when it has no real reason to be in the story. And each one kept getting more and more descriptive. The writing in those scenes were choppy and awkward and honestly, it felt like a bad fanfiction. I also started to notice that at least 65% of the sentences ending in ‘word, word’ or ‘phrase, phrase’. It really isn’t necessary to form all of the sentences in the exact same way.
The Romance: I was reading over some other reviews and I came across this statement: “this was quite the quixotic love story” (Amanda R.) I completely agree. The romance in here was too perfect. Brayden – whose viewpoint is where we read the story – falls in love with a girl within 2 days of meeting her after having had a repeating dream of her for a month. She also happens to reciprocate the feelings within that time span and somehow they end up making love on day 3. They just met!!! I can believe love at first sight but to fall ‘madly in love’ with someone in three days and then run away with them? For all you know, they could be a craving lunatic who’s sadistically playing you and will end up killing you and dumping your body into a ravine!
The Plot: The plot was really confusing at times because new information would be shared and then a realization would occur with no basis as to that realization. For example, we learn that the bad guy, Julius, is related to Brayden. Somehow, Ariel realizes this when Brayden admits to being related to Lenora (a past High Witch). There is no correlation between the two! These kinds of connections kept popping up and wouldn’t be explained until a few chapters later. I also felt that Julius and ‘the trial’ were never explained well enough. Why would any high witch go through this test if they are powerful enough to make anything they want happen?
The Characters: Brayden seemed to know everything at one point and then suddenly became completely useless at the end. Ariel, through out most of the book, appeared so weak and timid that I was honestly not surprised she ran off with a guy she just met and claimed that she loved him. Near the end I was honestly rooting for Julius just because Brayden and Ariel annoyed me so much.
Honestly, if I didn’t have to write a review I probably would have put the book down after chapter two. This novella has great reviews on Amazon and Goodreads so you may want to go check those out before making your own decision on this novella. Her books all look and sound interesting but after this I probably won’t try anything else by her.
My Rating: ★★