Salt & Storm by Kendall Kulper
Published: September 23, 2014Publisher: Little, Brown Young ReadersReceived: originally received via Netgalley, but finally borrowed audio from libraryNarrator: Lauren FortgangYou don't know what you must give up to become a witch.
Avery Roe wants only to claim her birthright as the witch of Prince Island and to make the charms that have kept the island's sailors safe at sea for generations, but instead she is held prisoner by her mother in a magic-free life of proper manners and respectability.
Avery thinks escape is just a matter of time, but when she has a harrowing nightmare, she can see what it means: She will be killed. She will be murdered. And she's never been wrong before.
Desperate to change her future, Avery finds a surprising ally in Tane—a tattooed harpoon boy with magic of his own, who moves her in ways she never expected. But as time runs out to unlock her magic and save herself, Avery discovers that becoming a witch requires unimaginable sacrifice.
Avery walks the knife's edge between choice and destiny in Kendall Kulper's sweeping debut: the story of one girl's fight to survive the rising storm of first love and family secrets.
When I first heard about it , I nabbed it from NetGalley, but then somehow it got pushed aside for new pretties and so on. But after having read it, I quite enjoyed it, even with it's slow parts.
Avery Roe is born to a family of witches, but she can't become the witch without some sacrifice. She truly wants to become the witch with all her being and just adored living with her grandmother by the sea and learning all about her ancestry. Until the day her mother returned and pulled her away from the only life she knew all in the name of "protecting" her from becoming the Roe Witch. Everything has a price, but Avery just doesn't know what becoming the witch will cost her.
She is so determined to become the witch and take over for her grandmother, that she tries over and over to leave her mother's home and keeps meeting magical block after magical block. Until she meets the tattooed boy, Tane. That's when everything changes.
The story is quite slowly paced for most of the book with a slow and awkward romance. At times this was frustrating because I just wanted to know what would happen, but overall I really enjoyed the fact that the story took a little bit of time to unravel. The romance didn't really seem like it was going to happen at first, they were awkward and did talk too much at first, but once she started trusting Tane and needing his help, I could see how easy it would be to fall in love with him.
I loved the different types magic described in the book and the setting of being on the island and tied to the land, the sea and it's people via this magic. I think I kind of figured out how the witch would get her magic, but I didn't truly see exactly what would need to happen before it got quite close to the time. Oops.
The writing gave me moments where I could vividly picture the little cabin on the end of the islands, surrounded by rocks with waves crashing. I could picture the whales and whaling boats heading out to sea. I could picture the little village and the people of the island. I adored the setting of this book so much.
Perhaps because I listened to the audiobook in lieu of reading the eARC I still had access to, that it made a difference. I noticed mixed reviews online for this book, but I wonder if hearing the story out loud was more magical than just reading the words from paper?
If you are looking for a book with magic, romance and an island setting - this just might be for you.
About the Author:
No comments:
Post a Comment
I read every comment and try to reply to them all. Thanks for visiting my little piece of the blogosphere.