Book Review: Witch Weigh
Author: Caroline Mickelson
Kindle
Price: $2.99
Paperback: $6.49
Book
Description
Tessa
Von Hellengaard is a real witch. Magical spells aside, she’s snarky and
selfish, and the other witches in her silent spell coven are fed up with her.
Their plan to reform Tessa involves taking away her magic, saddling her with
one hundred extra pounds, and sending her to a weight loss spa. For good
measure they call in Liam Kennedy, a charming and sexy fairy godfather, to
teach her some manners. Desperate to regain her magic and determined to shed
the weight, Tessa soon realizes that protecting her heart from Liam will prove
to be her greatest challenge.
Disclaimers
First
of all, I have to state up-front I am not a fan of the Romance genre. I find most romance novels are too
unbelievable, too far removed from real life for me to enter a fictive state.
From my non-reader of romance position, I weary over drop-dead gorgeous heroes
and heroines who will after the author has showered the couple with lots of
drama, conflict and raising stakes are destined to live the fairytale happily
ever after no matter what period the story is set.
So,
forgive me if this is what you like about the Romance genre.
Second
of all, although the Kindle price is $2.99 I acquired this book when it was a
free download.
Thirdly,
as an aspiring author, I am aware of some story and writing techniques that
non-writer readers may not be aware of, so naturally, this affects my review
compared to other reviewers.
Char
Mesan Reviews
Witch
Weigh can probably be best described as a paranormal romance novella, meaning
it is a shorter read, and meant to be taken as ‘lighter’ and ‘more fun’ (story-wise)
than full length novels.
The
main, female character, Tessa Von Hellengaard, is a witch living in a mortal
world. She is a member of a coven, and
uses her magic against mortals (mainly to push people around) in order to get
what she wants, without any consideration of the effect – emotional, physical
or otherwise – that she is causing to these other people. Tessa’s sole,
selfish, focus as the story starts is to be elected as the coven’s
representative to teach non-verbal spell-casting, for which her own coven
specialises, in Europe.
Tessa
is meant to be selfish and ‘snarky’
in personality, and she is. Only, as a
reader, I find her (what the author shouldn’t want) completely unlikeable, and
therefore undeserving of a happily ever after ending despite the character
learning the full-preachy lessons that are deliberately enforced upon her by
her coven (and the author). The only ‘cool’ thing about Tessa that kept me
reading Witch Weigh and not put the book down as soon as the disgusting
behaviour became apparent is that as a witch, the character is able to perform
magic (my most favourite aspect of these types of stories). And not that over-the-top, Hollywood has
vamped it up to full throttle in order to appeal to action-adventure movie-goers
type of magic either, a la Harry Potter (movie), Merlin (TV series) and Once
Upon a Time (TV series); more the wondrously simple magic casting like Samantha
in Bewitched (TV series) or any children’s books the likes of The Folk of the
Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton and so on. So, the magic in Witch Weigh was
rather delightful and appealing (for me).
Okay,
so I didn’t like Tessa one bit, but I still read the story, because, well, the
author’s writing style was easy and interesting enough to continue on.
In
the Harry Potter books (not the movies as much), one of the strongest appeals
was that of the richness of the wizarding world. In Witch Weigh, the elderly
coven members being fed up about their rude and arrogant member (because Tessa
is more downright rude and arrogant in addition to being selfish than the
lesser description of ‘snarky’ or being ‘full of sass’ personality-wise)
conjure a plan to force Tessa to learn a few lessons and change her rude,
selfish and arrogant ways by teaming her up with a fairy godfather (a nice shake-up
from the ordinary) and turning the usually thin Tessa into an overweight one
attending a Fat Camp to work off the excess weight.
I
was genuinely engaged watching the stubbornly arrogant and ignorant Tessa be
slow to learn that the way to lose the excess kilo’s for her was not having to
undertake hard workouts but to act from a place of kindness and unselfishness even though I didn't like the character.
The
trouble for me, was that the author made the fairy godfather, Liam Kennedy,
assigned to whip Tessa’s personality back into a more acceptable shape was more
‘Greek Adonis Angel’ than Fairy Godfather, so naturally, the two main characters were
going to fall in love and live happily ever after.
But,
I found the whole ‘romance’ between these two characters trite and unrealistic.
Liam
Kennedy appears to be assigned troublesome witches with bad attitudes as being some
sort of expert in whipping their personalities back into shape as his job. So, for me, it was unrealistic that the
drop-dead handsome godfather would start to develop feelings of like or love
towards a personality that is so rude and obnoxious. Maybe, if he had of fallen for Tessa once she was
reformed (seriously, that is not a spoiler, is it? I mean, you can see that Tessa will reform
before stories end, without me having just stated it?) I might have liked the
story a bit better and found his falling for her a bit more believable. But as it stands, Liam, the expert personality changer, starts falling for the bad personality instead of a nice one. Yeah, right. I'd so fall in love with someone that selfish, arrogant and mean if I was an expert in helping bring out the best in people - not.
So this was where the Romance genre bit kicked in... and my interest waned, and eye-rolling began. And yes, Tessa reforms and there is a Happily Ever After style ending to round it all off and bring the story to its conclusion.
The
strengths of this book are that it appears professionally edited, and the
author’s writing style was engaging and easy to read, that the author made her
writing seem effortless (and I know it is a lot of hard work!)
The
weakness of the story is that it contained some ‘cliché’ genre elements that as
an author myself I try hard to avoid within my own storytelling.
I
enjoyed the story enough to keep reading, but I could easily have turned my
Kindle off and not bothered to have gone back to finish it off because of the elements I don't like.
For
me, the book was free and I enjoyed it sufficiently to give it a four star
rating; but if I had of had to pay $2.99 to purchase it, then I probably would
have been a bit more critical (and I don't like to be), and perhaps a bit more unfavourable towards the author (I know, I haven't perfected my own writing yet, so who am I to critique another writer!). All up, I think I would have been content to
have paid $1.99 for this Kindle book as reasonably priced.
If
you love stories with romance, magical elements, a bit of ‘heroine’ acting
arrogant, then you will definitely enjoy Witch Weigh as a delightful 'beach' or 'waiting room'
read.
I've read worse. I'm giving the story a four star rating instead of five purely because Tessa wasn't very likeable as a main character, and Liam becoming romantically interested in the horrible Tessa occurred too soon for it to be believable. But apart from those two aspects, and that 'a lesson needs to be learned' is a bit preachy, the story and writing was, even if I haven't conveyed this properly, worth reading.
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