Name: Adwait Kulkarni's review of Threadneedle by Cari Thomas
Item: Threadneedle
Rating: 3.5
Author: Adwait Kulkarni

Cari Thomas

Within the boroughs of London, nestled among its streets, hides another city, filled with magic. 'Magic and love. Love and magic. They destroy everything in the end ...' Anna's Aunt has always warned her of the dangers of magic. Its twists. Its knots. Its deadly consequences. Now Anna counts down the days to the ceremony that will bind her magic forever. Until she meets Effie and Attis. They open her eyes to a London she never knew existed. A shop that sells memories. A secret library where the librarian feeds off words. A club where revellers lose themselves in a haze of spells. But as she is swept deeper into this world, Anna begins to wonder if her Aunt was right all along. Is her magic a gift ... or a curse?

Threadneedle

Samantha

Within the boroughs of London, nestled among its streets, hides another city, filled with magic.

The basic outline of the book is kind of similar to Harry Potter books. It's based in London. The witches are the ones with magic and the Cowans are the Muggles, the ones with no magical powers. These Cowans have no idea that the magic exists in real world. 

Anna is a 15 year old girl and a witch whose parents were murdered when she was an infant. She's staying with her aunt who is against using magical powers in the real world. Once Anna turns 16, her aunt is going to bind her magic forever because that's what best for her. 

Now during this one year period, Anna meets Effie and few other friends/witches from her high school who help her see the bright side of magic which leads to Anna finding out that her magic is cursed. Why is her magic cursed? Is there any relation of that curse with her parent's death? Why her father killed her mother? And if Magic is cursed then isn't it better to bind it forever? Anna has a year to answer all these questions.

1) The Suspense and how it unfolds: The overlying narrative of who killed Anna's parents and why is planted very well through out the book. The twist and the reveal is well handled and explained which certainly adds more depth to the story.

2) Magic: There isn't a literal World Building done as the story takes place in London but the magical elements are explained in detail and described beautifully. Every witch is basically a translator between the physical world and magic. To cast a spell every witch needs Magic, a language and Hira (force). The language of magic can be anything such as dance, music, knot, candle etc. This explanation makes it more believable.

3) The Writing Style: The author really has this special charm to her writing. There is one scene where Anna's aunt is playing Piano and Anna is listening and the way that feeling of listening to piano is described is magical! There are few more such scene throughout the book and I enjoyed them all.

4) Humour: Rowan and Attis, friends of Anna are generally funny and sometimes witty.

1) The High school Drama: It was disappointing to see that after such a promising start to the book, a lot of the middle part is spent in typical teenage high school drama.There are the 3 Mean Girls. Anna and her friends are the unpopular ones. Anna has a crush on the popular guy in the school who is dating one of the mean girls etc. I understand that we spent all that time in High School to build characters and their motives but it could have easily been cut short.

This book is charming and magical with the right amount of suspense and humour. The bigger narrative of Hunters vs Witches certainly calls for future books in this Language of Magic Series. Considering this is only the debut novel of the Author, one can only imagine how good the sequel is going to be.!

Adwait Kulkarni

Summary: 
The basic outline of the book is kind of similar to Harry Potter books. It's based in London. The witches are the ones with magic and the Cowans are the Muggles, the ones with no magical powers. These Cowans have no idea that the magic exists in real world. 

Anna is a 15 year old girl and a witch whose parents were murdered when she was an infant. She's staying with her aunt who is against using magical powers in the real world. Once Anna turns 16, her aunt is going to bind her magic forever because that's what best for her. 

Now during this one year period, Anna meets Effie and few other friends/witches from her high school who help her see the bright side of magic which leads to Anna finding out that her magic is cursed. Why is her magic cursed? Is there any relation of that curse with her parent's death? Why her father killed her mother? And if Magic is cursed then isn't it better to bind it forever? Anna has a year to answer all these questions.

What I Liked:
1) The Suspense and how it unfolds: The overlying narrative of who killed Anna's parents and why is planted very well through out the book. The twist and the reveal is well handled and explained which certainly adds more depth to the story.

2) Magic: There isn't a literal World Building done as the story takes place in London but the magical elements are explained in detail and described beautifully. Every witch is basically a translator between the physical world and magic. To cast a spell every witch needs Magic, a language and Hira (force). The language of magic can be anything such as dance, music, knot, candle etc. This explanation makes it more believable.

3) The Writing Style: The author really has this special charm to her writing. There is one scene where Anna's aunt is playing Piano and Anna is listening and the way that feeling of listening to piano is described is magical! There are few more such scene throughout the book and I enjoyed them all.

4) Humour: Rowan and Attis, friends of Anna are generally funny and sometimes witty.

What I Didn't Like:
1) The High school Drama: It was disappointing to see that after such a promising start to the book, a lot of the middle part is spent in typical teenage high school drama.There are the 3 Mean Girls. Anna and her friends are the unpopular ones. Anna has a crush on the popular guy in the school who is dating one of the mean girls etc. I understand that we spent all that time in High School to build characters and their motives but it could have easily been cut short.

Conclusion:
This book is charming and magical with the right amount of suspense and humour. The bigger narrative of Hunters vs Witches certainly calls for future books in this Language of Magic Series. Considering this is only the debut novel of the Author, one can only imagine how good the sequel is going to be.!

Overall it was a good book. At times however it was very juvenile and slow but some of the twist and turns in it made up for that fact. I’m not really sure if I would read the next book yet

Lauren Dale

Megan Lowe

3.75 stars.

I’m so torn with this book.
On one hand, I loved the magic system and what happens, and the cast of characters.
On the other hand, the binders aren’t explained until literally 300 pages in (of 555). I mean, I gathered what they were, but it was never explained.
Then, things plod along for 480 pages, with bits happening that aren’t entirely relevant, then bam! Those last 70 pages everything happens.
Also, there is another book to this. It’s not a stand-alone, so be prepared when starting this, it won’t be finished.
As I said, the cast were great. I love Attis and Rowlands in particular and I’d love to see more of Oliver. There was some truly beautiful writing in it as well, but this book was a bit of a slog. Not anything I considered DNFing, but definitely a slog.

The Sunday Times No.4 Bestseller Within the boroughs of London, nestled among its streets, hides another city, filled with magic.

Shannon Thomas

This was one of my most anticipated reads of 2021. It has everything I love, witches and magic!
While I overall enjoyed it, this wasn’t really what I had anticipated it being. It leaned a lot more toward YA when I anticipated it being an adult fantasy and while that’s not really a problem, I feel it would’ve worked better as an adult fantasy considering the themes.
It’s quite a dark book and I felt the level of darkness didn’t entirely match the tone of the book. If it were an adult fantasy I feel like there’d have been more scope for that darkness to flourish.
It just fell a bit flat for me. I’m sure others will enjoy it and maybe I just hyped it up for myself too much but it just didn’t match it’s potential. I found it a chore to get through and in the end bought the audiobook for a less heavy reading experience.

I’m not quite sure where to start with this one… I mean firstly it took me nearly two months to read this, which is, wow, like that must be a record for me!

I struggled with this one. From the moment Threadneedle was announced it was up there as one of my most anticipated reads of 2021 and I was lucky to get a physical copy. I adore anything witchy and magic and the blurb honestly sounds amazing so I had no doubts about it… but it just fell flat?

Firstly, Waterstones has it listed as adult, so does Amazon and I thought it was targeted at adults but it definitely feels like a YA. It had some real potential to be a dark witchy fantasy but felt almost censored and toned down. I was expecting adult dark academia but it was very school children drama. I hated the bullying aspect, but hated more that it was dealt with in a fight fire with fire kind of way.

Secondly, the magic system is just kind of there… with no explanation. I mean I understand Anna is from a family of witches but I’d have liked to know a bit more about the history, especially in relation to the binders. Whether that’ll come in the sequel I don’t know.

I ended up switching to the audiobook at about 40% in and it was much easier/quicker to digest that way. I definitely enjoyed it more listening to it. Overall I enjoyed it, but it’s not what I expected it to be. 

2.5/5

Sunyi Dean

I think I didn't pay quite enough attention to the marketing or maybe this is a result of the UK not separating out ya from adult in SFF genres to the extent that the Americans do, but I didn't realise quite how ya the novel would be. It's modern day witches at high school, set in London, among relatively posh kids. I struggle with magic school books so I'm really not the audience but it was well written and put together with interesting magic. I would not recommend it to my friends who read adult SFF but I might recommend it to the few teens I know who read books of that flavour as it has a lot to offer that age group. In that sense, it is actually refreshing to read ya which feels, for once, targeted at actual ya readers instead of ya written for adults on the sly.

Ashling Brown

I could not put this book down. From start to finish, I was utterly hooked.

I've never been much into books about witches, but this one was just incredible. I love that the story was based primarily on a school, had a secret coven of young witches, and had weird twisty magic. 

Cari Thomas wrote the friendship and sisterhood in this book well, and I love that she challenged and questioned it constantly. You never could see where the storyline was heading, and I loved that. I love that each of the girls had different personalities, magic types and quirks. Although they weren't all the same with a few differences, they felt different and unique, and I loved that about the book. 

‘People think stories are harmless, but they are the most dangerous weapon mankind has.’

I enjoyed the complexity of the love throughout Threadneedle. I love how Anna was uncertain and determined, and I love the ending to the book, which was a vow of protection to the one she truly loves. I love how all of these feelings come out during a ritual and how Anna pushes through the uncertainty and pain for those she loves and who love her back. 

Now this book did cover some darker subjects such as mental and physical abuse, I, however, feel that it was handled well. My heart hurt as I read through the struggles and challenges our protagonist was put through, but she dealt with them and got stronger. I will say that Cari Thomas can write characters that are easy to hate!! (if you've read, you'll know who I'm talking about!!)

The magical system, in my opinion, was unique, especially considering I'm not really into Witchcraft books. I loved how different magic casting types for other people and how the things you loved could turn into the way you cast your spells (Anna and her piano). 

Overall I enjoyed the book, and I can't wait to get my hands on the next one!

Nickie Mohler

3.5 stars

This was a tough one to rate. The synopsis for this made me think it would be a five star read. It started off great, then we got to the teenage angst and I started to lose interest. Since it's a review copy, I continued on. I'm glad I did. I love all the witchcraft, and the characters. And I was quite surprised by the plot twists. I had no idea it would end the way it did. For that reason, I will definitely pick up the next one.

I received a copy from Net Galley.

Nicole Lucy O'Loughlin

Really enjoyed this book! Would be five stars except I feel some of the reveals at the end could have been handled better. HOWEVER! This book is wonderfully magical, its both light and hopefully with a sharp and cutting edge. The story feels kind of like a dark, fairytale with the same kind of feeling to it as walking through a forest at twilight. Would recommend to anyone who feels like a witchy read!

Samantha King

A thrilling, gripping dark magical read, about coming of age in a world were you don't know if magic is a gift or a curse.
First of all I would say there are a few tw for this book so check those out first. 
Threadneedle was such a captivating read and a brilliant debut novel and opening to a series.
The characters in this book were all unique each one standing out. 
The story progress was done well, although slow to begin with. The last 200 to 300 pages had me reading with my mouth open in shock at the twists that were happening. 
I loved the magic system in this book it was done so well amd really emerged you into that world with these characters.
If you loved Harry Potter I'd highly reccomens this book.
This was dark and utterly addictive and Has left me with one question.
What next?

"Magic is the first sin"

Manon van Heumen

My expectations were extremely high when starting this book, and they were definitely met! This book has everything you expect from a witchy fantasy: alluring characters, and engaging plot and buckets of magic. At times the story was slow, but I wasn't bothered by this. I can highly recommend this spellbinding debut!

Joanna Rosenwink 

Thank you to the publishers for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and there were parts which were so gripping I found it impossible to put down! Anna’s journey to discover the truth about her magic and her family was enthralling. I loved the magical aspects of London, particularly the library. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

Samantha &
Threadneedle by Cari Thomas

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