Witches of East End (Witches of the East) (original 2011; édition 2013)

Norse pantheon represent! Kind of a fun idea, but the pacing was odd -- too slow for about 3/4 of the book (are they really so clueless?) followed by lightning fast understanding of everything! and its implications! Of course! -- and by this I mean moving along gradually for about 240 pages, then zip! wrapped up, all mysteries understood, explained, reolved in...25 pages. That includes the epilogue. ( )

A few years ago I caught the series based on this novel on TV. It was not a cinematic masterpiece but it was a nice summer series. Unfortunately, as often happens, it got cancelled after the second season with all kinds of plot lines still dangling so I figured I will check the novel and see if its own sequels solve some of them.

Well... they might but they won't be the same. A major character exists only in the series and most of the action required her to be there. So... so much about that.

What about the novel? It is the first adult novel of an author known for YA and it shows - it is pushing into the adult zone but not because of the maturity of the characters and their actions - it is mostly because of the topics and the ages of everyone. Which is not how you write an adult novel...

The premise is interesting enough - a family of immortal witches (which happen to be some well known characters from Norse mythology) is sentenced to spend their lives without their powers and had settled in a small town on the coast of Long Island. When the novel opens, they are starting to slowly push against that ruling, testing the waters and then things start going horribly wrong. I may have enjoyed the novel a lot more if I had found it before the series; with the series in my head, it feels like a draft that needs a lot of revision and color.

I am not sure if I am going to read the rest of the series - these Beauchamps are shadows of the ones in the TV adaptation (which is somewhat hard to do - I tend to like books more than I like their adaptations). I am not sorry that I read it but I wish it was a lot stronger as a novel... ( )

I picked this book up thinking it would be similar to the Blue Blood series. My first clue was the blatant hook of sexuality in the first 10 pages. I wouldn't recommend this as a YA book for anyone younger than 16, that's for sure. I know sex is everywhere, but if I want to read about heaving bosoms, panting and spreading of legs, I'd just pick up a trashy romance.

That said, once she got the sex out of her system, this book was enjoyable. Mimi Force and Oliver make an appearance, which I quite enjoy. Overlapping series help paint a broader picture. I find her take on the other worlds pretty fascinating - how she ties vampires and witches together, steeped in history. I'd give it 4, but the sex in the first chapter REALLY threw me off. I had to force myself to keep reading and change my expectations of the book. ( )

I've been trying to find more books about witches, and was really excited when I found this one. Luckily, I only borrowed it from my library and can give it back today. It started off really well, though it sounded more and more like a soap opera.

I didn't make it very far into the book, though I tried. I honestly stopped reading when Freya cheats on her fiance with his brother at their engagement party. I stared at the book, and said "That's it. I'm done."

I don't expect characters to be perfect, or to always make the right choices, but the cheating combined with the soap opera feel was too much. I was starting to make fun of the book before I'd even made it a fourth of the way through. ( )

This is written in a relatively light, entertaining style that makes it an unchallenging read but one that is a pleasure to sit down with. A well constructed, interesting story populated with great characters. ( )