Review: White Witch

White Witch by Trish Milburn

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Book Info: Genre: Urban Fantasy Reading Level: YA

Disclosure: I received a free eGalley eBook from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis: Witchcraft Is Her Family’s Business. No One Quits The Family And Lives To Tell About It. “Jax” Pherson has power, enough power to know her future will end in service to the dark coven her father controls. Unless she can stay hidden in a small community in the mountains of North Carolina. She must find a way to live without magic and deny the darkness she feels welling up inside her — the same dark power that fuels the covens around the world. All she wants is a normal life. A boyfriend. Friends. Some place to belong, but all too soon Jax’s barely begun new life hangs in the balance when she discovers that the boy she’s attracted to is sworn to kill her kind. He’s a hunter with good reason to kill everything that goes bump in the night. Even the most fleeting use of her power is tantamount to signing her death warrant and will bring both hunter and coven down on her. But can she walk away when her friends are threatened by an old evil? Something created by the magic of witches? Jax’s only hope of survival is to convince the boy she loves to forget everything he’s ever been taught and help her find a way to fight the covens. To believe there is some good in her.

My Thoughts: This follows the well-established YA paranormal genre norms – very pretty girl, paranormal, wants to be normal, all the boys want her, most of the girls hate her, she falls for the absolute worst guy for her, etc. etc. etc. However, there are differences, and it is in these differences that this book finds its redemption. The “absolute worst” guy is actually quite nice, and likes her back. There is no artificial “dynamic tension” where they constantly fight for no good reason; he is not full of himself, he is not a “bad boy”, and he treats her kindly. Therefore, this book is saved from mediocrity by daring to break the mold and be different – just slightly different, but that bit is exactly what was needed.

I need to say that I absolutely adore Toni; I’m also a huge fan of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and I can totally relate to her geekiness on this point. I also quite liked Egan, although I was initially not quite sure what to make of him. One thing that bothered me was Jax’s insistence that, if her family figured out where she was, she should leave – it seems to me that, if her family is as retributive as she feels they are, just because she is gone that doesn’t mean they won’t destroy everyone she had anything to do with while she was there just out of sheer spite.

I ended up literally devouring this book, reading it in less than 4 hours and, despite not having slept, I was eager to immediately get started on the second book in the series, Bane. Fans of YA paranormal and urban fantasy should really enjoy this book – it’s a great start to a new series and one I thoroughly enjoyed; highly recommended.



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