Assessment:

Plot/Idea: In a fresh and energetically-paced tale, Vianna Roots, scion of an important family of witches, returns to her native Salem to deal with her dead mother's house, and encounters resistance, magically, from the house itself, and from the coven of witches who wish to claim it and her.

Prose: The writing, sentence by sentence, is sound, coherent, and artful enough. However, the rules of the game (witchcraft and magic) wildly proliferate, undermining a reader's trust in the reality of the world of the story.

Originality: Most striking in Legacy Witches is the blend of the supernatural and the quotidian. Characters quarrel, clean, munch, and form cliques, even as they summon spirits, work spells, and penetrate mysteries of dead ancestors.

Character Development/Execution: Conspiracies and feuds roil families. The protagonist, Vianna, has a warm friendship with Dee that sustains much of the action, as neighboring witches try to manipulate her, and Vianna's ghostly grandmother heckles her nonstop. That Vianna is uninterested in witchcraft and wants to live an ordinary life back in Boston makes her both an unusual and sympathetic character.

Date Submitted: July 08, 2022