Starting in Brittany in 1821, this is the history of one family
of witches, the Orchieres. They are Romani, and therefore automatically suspect
whenever someone wants to persecute a witch. Which is why one night Grand-mere
Ursule gives her life to hide the family from a witch hunting priestI, telling
them to flee across the channel to Cornwall, taking the family’s two treasures:
the grimoire, and the large crystal that was dug from the mud many generations
ago.
Seventeen years later, having found an abandoned farmstead
and settled on it, the priest who had been searching for them on the night
Ursule died finds them again. Nanette, the youngest girl of the family, finds
that Ursules power has passed to her, and she and her sisters make a spell of
protection. And so it goes through the generations; in each generation, there
is one powerful woman. Others may have the knack of potions or small spells,
but only one carries the power to activate the crystal.
We meet five generations of women. Some I adored; one I
disliked intensely. Fortunes change through the years- drastically. Some are
lucky in love; some are not. Some are dedicated to honoring the wheel of the
year; some don’t perform the rituals for years. In the final book, the power of
the Orchiere line becomes crucial to the protection of England. Through it all,
their power and religion must be kept strictly secret.
I really enjoyed this book. The details of the lives of the
women- especially during their years on the farm- bring the story to life. These
are vivid, strong women. The only flaw in the book is the last book; after the
body of the book is told in a way that one could easily believe it could have
happened, the last book is rather over the top. It makes use of a historic
person who seems like an unlikely witch, although it *would* explain her
amazingly long life! I’d say four and a half stars out of five.
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I received this book free from the Amazon Vine program in return for an unbiased review.
Neither of these things influenced my review.
I may have to read it just to get to the woman in the last book. Sounds good.
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