Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Release Day Review: The Witches of Bone Hill by Ava Morgyn

(St. Martin’s Griffin, September 26, 2023, $18.00)

Ava Morgyn's The Witches of Bone Hill is a spellbinding, romantic novel about family secrets and two young women who discover they're Nordic witches.

 

Cordelia Bone's meticulously crafted life and career in Dallas are crashing down around her thanks to a philandering husband with criminal debts.

When her older, carefree sister, Eustace—a cannabis grower in Boulder, calls to inform her the great aunt they never met has died and they must travel to a small town in Connecticut to deal with the estate, she sees an opportunity to unload the house and save herself.

But once there, the sisters learn they are getting much more than they bargained for. The Victorian mansion they stand to inherit is bound in a dynasty trust controlled by their late aunt's aging attorney who insists they inhabit the house and retain it but keeps them in the dark about the peculiar rituals of their ancestors. Not to mention a sexy, tattooed groundskeeper with a shrouded past who refuses to leave the carriage house and a crypt full of dead relatives looming at the property line.

As both women grapple with their current predicament, they come face to face with a haunting family secret, the truth of what happened to their mother, and the enemy that's been stalking them from the shadows for generations. In a twisting torrent of terror and blood, the sisters must uncover the power within them to heal their fractured relationship, reverse their mysteriously declining health, and claim the lineage they wanted to escape but now must embrace if they are to survive at Bone Hill.

 



Buy Links

 

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BAM | Bookshop.org

 

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What I thought about The Witches of Bone Hill

 

Cordelia Bone is having some trouble -- she's getting divorced and there are lots of bills to pay.  When she finds out she's inherited a large estate with her sister Eustace, that just might be her ticket out of her money troubles.


Only it isn't that simple.  The sisters are forced to live in the Victorian mansion in Connecticut to fulfill the requirements of the will and in the process they learn all about their history.  There's juicy secrets galore here. Witches as the title might suggest and all that comes with what witches do. And there's the yummy caretaker to add a little bit of romance to the mix.  

 

The synopsis was certainly interesting and this is the time of year for some good scary stories.  There's a bit of horror in this one too to make it extra creepy.  I liked that about it, although I could have done without the animal cruelty. 


I also enjoyed the mythology used in this story, along with the relationship between Cordelia and her sister.  Although there were slow spots and most of the real action happened at the end, I thought the Witches of Bone Hill delivered a suspenseful story of witches with a dash of horror. It's a solid debut in adult fiction.



Trigger Warnings: Sudden death, mutilation, hauntings, animal cruelty, sexual content, drug use, language.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

 

AVA MORGYN grew up falling in love with all the wrong characters in all the wrong stories, then studied English Writing & Rhetoric at St. Edward’s University. She is a lover of witchcraft, tarot, and powerful women with bad reputations, and she currently resides in Houston with her family, surrounded by antiques and dog hair. When not at her laptop spinning darkly hypnotic tales, she writes for her blog on child loss, hunts for vintage treasures, and reads the darkest books she can find. She is the author of YA novels Resurrection Girls and The Salt in Our Blood.

https://www.avamorgyn.com/

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