Title: A Lullaby for Witches
Author: Hester Fox
Publication: February 1, 2022
Publisher: Graydon House
Genre: Fantasy, Gothic Fiction
Pages: 339
SYNOPSIS: (From Goodreads)
Once there was a young woman from a well-to-do New England family who never quite fit with the drawing rooms and parlors of her kin.
Called instead to the tangled woods and wild cliffs surrounding her family’s estate, Margaret Harlowe grew both stranger and more beautiful as she cultivated her uncanny power. Soon, whispers of “witch” dogged her footsteps, and Margaret’s power began to wind itself with the tendrils of something darker.
One hundred and fifty years later, Augusta Podos takes a dream job at Harlowe House, the historic home of a wealthy New England family that has been turned into a small museum in Tynemouth, Massachusetts. When Augusta stumbles across an oblique reference to a daughter of the Harlowes who has nearly been expunged from the historical record, the mystery is too intriguing to ignore.
But as she digs deeper, something sinister unfurls from its sleep, a dark power that binds one woman to the other across lines of blood and time. If Augusta can’t resist its allure, everything she knows and loves—including her very life—could be lost forever.
REVIEW:
**A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**
I saw this book and I knew that I needed to read it. I find anything with a witches theme fascinating. They just draw me in and I get lost in them. It wasn’t until I started to read the book that I realized that I had read a book by this author in 2020 and really really liked it!! I knew that this book was going to be amazing just by that factor.
Augusta is at a dead-end job as a tour guide at a jail in Salem. She even is in a dead-end relationship. She is in it for comfort and that is about it. One day she is looking through jobs and finds one that is right up her alley and right in line with her degree from college. On a whim, she applies and she gets it. What happens once she enters the house is something that she could have never seen coming. The resident ghost Margaret sees to that. I loved this book. Every night when I turned on my kindle I was excited to read it. The beginning is a little slow but it is still exciting. I really liked the character of Augusta, I could see myself in her. The shy awkward person who settles because it is something comfortable. She really blossoms as the book goes on. My jaw dropped when “the big event” happened. I never saw that twist coming at all!
I loved the banter that Leo and Augusta have. I am so glad that things ended well for them. I was shocked when things happened with Margaret and Leo. I hated that she drew him into her whole crazy world. However, at the same time, I could feel for her. Her life was cut short by someone that she thought loved her and I guess that was not the case. The character development was really good. I didn’t realize that Margaret was supposed to be the evil character in this book. I kind of enjoyed her story and honestly enjoyed her. I will certainly be keeping this author on my radar for future reads from him.
