The Witchwood Knot

The Witchwood Knot by Olivia Atwater felt like participating in a faerietale-like escape game set in a dangerous mansion with hidden passageways and secrets that will shock you to the bone. It was perfect for spooky season and will be suitable throughout winter and gloomy months. There's an undead cat familiar, a mysterious butler, faces in the walls and more. Themes of grief and consent are handled sensibly in this book. You won't want to miss out on it. I loved it and will acquire a physical copy to add to my collection of favourite books. I received an advance readers copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

After devouring Atwater’s other books last fall, I expected something similar from the Witchwood Knot, which I did get, though it couldn’t convince me as much as the Regency Faerie Tales Series around Dora and the others. I think my main problem with the book was the many allusions that were made and the kind of purposefully vague conversations the main characters kept having, which did make sense in the context of the story, but if you only ever allude to what they could be meaning, you sometimes lose your readers, as in my case. I just didn’t always know what they were going on about and that left me confused and a little frustrated. The protagonists were interesting though, Winnie was clever, very strong and had an interesting backstory, though I wished we would have learned about that a little bit earlier. Mr. Quincy was definitely an interesting opponent for her, who was wonderfully morally grey. I wasn’t a big fan of how their dynamics developed during the book though, the ending was fine, but inbetween I wasn’t convinced by the sudden changes their relationship underwent. The whole family stayed a bit bland tbh, but it was okay as they didn’t play such an important role. One strong point I already liked in the Regency Faerie Tales and which was even more pronounced in this book was the criticism of oppressive structures. In this book we have a fmc who is very wary of men (and rightly so) and who protests the problems classism can create, especially for women in that era. Some of the topics are similar to Atwater's other series but that doesn't make them less relevant. The writing was good again, easy to read and follow and nothing to complain about. So all in all a solid start into the Victorian Faerie Tales, which are definitely more on the gothic horror side of Faerie Tales, compared to the fluffier Regency Ones, but that’s fair, even though it might not be my personal preference. Thanks to Netgalley and Olivia Atwater for the free ebook!