Laurie Forest: The Black Witch

In the first in a series, Laurie Forest takes readers on a young woman's discovery of what is truly important in life:

Elloren is the spitting image of her grandmother, the famed Black Witch who was the hero of the Realm War. Too bad Elloren does not have half the magic that her grandmother had, in fact she has no magic at all. Elloren has lived with her brother and Uncle in a small town the majority of her life after her parents were killed and although Elloren does not have any magic, she has dreams of pursuing apothecary. When she is granted the opportunity to do so at a prestigious university. What Elloren does not realize that the world is a very different place that she thought, and her connection to the Black Witch is no a good one, especially at the university. Darkness looms all around Elloren and she has to decide which side is going to be on.

This the first book that I read by Forest and I cannot wait to read the next book in this series. Forest takes on a lot in this first book, not only introducing us to the world and characters but the political strife that is occurring in this book. There are arranged marriages (wand fasting) at a young age, there is racism, sexism and homophobia all wound into this story. For any book this would be a lot but Forest tackled it in a way that it never felt like too much or overwhelming. Now are these ideas new in a fiction or even a fantasy stories, No, but I appreciate the way that Forest handles these topics and how it is wound up in the political aspects of this book as well as Elloren trying to discover who she is and what she believes in.

Elloren is an interesting character from her green skin, to her lack of power to her really just discovering the wide world around her. She id pretty naive for her age but this is due to the fact that she was sheltered her whole life. Was there sign in her small town of the racism/homophobia/sexism, yes but not to the extreme one would experience in a city. This book is written more in a YA or New Adult way and I do find that Elloren comes across younger than she is and in some of the decision that she makes, especially at the beginning of the book. I enjoyed Elloren's personal journey in this book and the decisions that she decides to make. I look forward to seeing her grow more, challenge things around her more and grow into herself.

While Elloren is the main character in this book, there are quite a few side characters that I want to know more about and I think I would like a secondary POV from a few of them. I mean not a lot of chapters but just a different perspective from Elloren's as she is learning a lot of new things first hand, it would be nice to have the perspective of one of the other races who have been living through it.

I think we can all guess who The Black Witch is going to be, I feel like it is very much implied by not only the title but what occurs at the beginning of the book, but i am interested in seeing where Forest will take the whole Black Witch aspect.

This was a great start to a series. I enjoyed the world that Forest has created (the political and corruption aspects especially), the characters, plot and magic system. I look forward to continuing on in the series.

Enjoy!!!!

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