Name: The Wise One
ISBN: 9781777331702

Kt Anglehart

After learning her mother is some sort of mystic and Mckenna is a Wise One; she journeys to Ireland in search of her mother and real answers. She must learn to trust her intuition and harness her magic before the darkness within emerges.

The Wise One

mighty dragon 

Thank you to BookSirens and K.T Anglehart for providing me a copy in exchange for an honest review!

The pace is too fast for me to keep up, and all-knowing POV made me feel less curious about the story, hence why I felt bored halfway through the book. I like the ideas though, it's more detailed than most witch-faeries stories I've read.

Luna

The Wise One is an adventure-filled story of friendship, family, and magic. We start off seeing 17-year-old Mckenna discovering the truth about her mother who has passed down magical abilities to her along with the mysterious title of the "Wise One". I absolutely loved the witchy, magical atmosphere, and it just gets better as Mckenna and her new friend Nissa travel to Ireland. The backdrop is described beautifully while still being concise. There's also faeries (that are actually cute and not creepy) and overall a very fun and intriguing cast of characters. I would describe this book as having cottage core vibes, which is a huge plus for me.

The pacing was really fast, which was usually nice but could also be slightly disorienting as you jump between characters, times, and settings. I had a lot of fun following Mckenna on this adventure to find her mother, but I still couldn't get super attached to the story and the characters. I think I'll enjoy the sequel a lot more as we dive into the characters, but I didn't love how some of them acted in this book. The romance that's being developed has an age-gap and huge power dynamic gap, which really isn't my thing personally and I just didn't see why they liked each other at all. I'm also on edge about how the bisexual rep (Mckenna has two dads, and her bio dad's relationship with her mother is where it gets iffy) was being handled, but I can see that improving a lot in the sequel. Overall, this was a super fun story with perfect witchy, magical, fall vibes, and all I could ask for is the characters' feelings to be more fleshed out. 


 Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an arc of this book!

Ariel Himboi

Thank you, of course, to BookSirens for lending me the ARC! A wonderful place for reviewers to promote authors in every genre. 

I will begin to say that the premise hooked me immediately. A seventeen year-old girl who has night terrors about burning witches? A girl, I might add, who has two gay dads. I absolutely applaud the rep, as one should when they see it. 

I applaud this book for having a great concept. Magic. Faeries. England and Scotland and all great beautiful Northern places I wish I could astral project to, like most of the characters find themselves doing in this novel. 

I love the idea of witches, covens and magical beings such as giants and higher beings. 

There were, however, things I didn't like. 

First, there were too many times where one should have more action, dialogue or character building, there was instead pages and even chapters of info-dumping. I understand that the author needed time to build the world, but it felt crammed and sometimes like the author breaking the fourth wall to give us information. 

Second, THAT ENDING. Gods. I told my boyfriend, "It felt like the beginning and middle of a book, even to the point of climax, but there was no resolution or ending or final battle. It simply ended." It felt as if the author didn't want to give too much away before the second book, but the problem is that the second book is going to start off where it should have been at the end of the first. 

We follow McKenna, a naïve girl in high school ( why would we blame her ) who wakes up on her birthday with the image of a girl burning on a cross, a witch. Then, wild things such as doors slamming on their own, and books jumping out at her seem to keep happening. And a strange bird that helps and follows her, who doesn't even appear in the book until it's necessary.

Some books need things to happen to the characters for the story to move, but this book did it way too often. Things happened passively to the characters, and as much as some of it was necessary for evil plans to unfold- it felt too coincidental regardless. It just felt.... simple.

McKenna and her new orphan friend embark on a journey, McKenna to find her mother and her friend Nissa to find her real parents.

Oh, and another thing. The romance budding between a seventeen year-old girl and a twenty one year old man? With an advantage? Unsettling and more than a little predatory, as he speaks to her with a vocabulary of an older man. I'm shivering in a bad way as I write this. I do hope the author... handles what she's doing intelligently as the story moves on.

The info dumps were okay, maybe leaning towards repetitive in an agitating way, as characters answer the MC's 'why? how?' with easy mannerisms, seeming, 'all knowing'. I thought it was nice to delve into POVs such as McKenna's two father, an introspective look into how they're dealing and feeling the events that unfold. 

Unfortunately, I finished this novel for one reason: To not leave a DNF on my second book. I had very high hopes for this novel. In the beginning I was excited and eager, but mid-way through the book I lost interest. The ending got interesting very quickly, past the info-dumps and odd situations that were too lucky to be realistic. 

This was an okay book. I'm not upset that I read it, or how long it took me to when I started losing my momentum. However, I recommend it goes through a few more edits. The story structure was messy. 

I recommend this for anyone looking for an interesting, magical, full of witches read with some beautiful imagery. But, if you're looking for a book with a good story-line and something with no plot holes, you're sadly mistaken. 

A good three stars, but I don't think I'll be continuing.

The Wise One

Reviews

Highlights