Victoria Lamb is a novelist with two historical series from Random House set in the Tudor era, one for adults (Bantam) and one for Young Adult readers (Corgi).
Witchfall by Victoria Lamb
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Witchfall is book two in The Tudor Witch Trilogy and from the first page, pulls the reader back into Meg Lytton’s story. She is a maid to Princess Elizabeth and also happens to be a witch….during a period of time where it is definitely not safe to be one (or just identified as one).
Book one left off with Meg fighting off Marcus Dent and Alejandro proposing to Meg and things pick up shortly after the end of that book. Now that Elizabeth has been brought back to court with the King and Queen, they are not only hiding the fact that Meg is a witch from the Inquisition but they also are trying to hide their feelings and relationship as well.
As the story progresses, it is clear that Alejandro is struggling with doing his duty as a priest and keeping Meg safe. She continually puts her safety aside in her service to Elizabeth and despite the fact that she really does love Alejandro; she continues to push away his offer of marriage. It was hard to see him think that Meg was putting him third to her service to Elizabeth and her magic and every time she did it I thought for sure he would finally walk away. Kudos to him for holding on.
Along with the relationship challenges she is facing, being at court puts Meg into more danger with the Inquisition. Senor de Pero knows there is more to Meg and he definitely believes the rumors he has heard about her. He will also do what he can to get to Elizabeth and ultimately his best route is through her maids. By taking them in for questioning, he hopes to get some sort of evidence to put Elizabeth in jail. Despite the treatment she receives at the hands of de Pero, Meg is able to escape the questioning without implicating Elizabeth through the outreach Elizabeth did to get her released.
The characters are a key part of what keeps me interested in this story. Meg still has her strength and I like that about her. The problem is that despite all she has been through so far, she continues to do things that put her in danger.
What bothered me most was the fact that Elizabeth was only ever concerned about herself. Yes, she is a princess so there is a sense of entitlement but she never really thought about the consequences to the things she asked Meg to do. When she asks Meg to bring her mother back so she can talk to her, Meg does it because she was basically ordered to do so, but Elizabeth then proceeded to blame Meg for all of the problems after, it made me want Meg to tell her it was mostly her fault.
I enjoyed seeing William, Meg’s brother, come back into the mix in this book. Meg was awful quick to forgive him for the betrayal he committed in book one and to be honest, I’m not sure that I remember that happening but I can see why she would have jumped at having a familiar face/person around when he showed up, regardless of what happened in the past.
Alice is a question mark for me yet. There are times where she comes across as a real friend to Meg but other times where I thought she was up to something. Perhaps that is just me being untrusting of her motives but I just am not sure how I feel about her yet.
Richard was an interesting character but I felt like his confession to Meg when he went to tell her what happened with Marcus Dent came out of nowhere. There was no build up to him telling her he loved her outside of the jealousy that Alejandro felt seeing them work together. I didn’t feel like they had enough time to develop a relationship like that.
As the story progresses, we learn that Meg is continuing to have visions and she is having a hard time determining what is really in store for her future versus what is just a nightmare. Regardless, she has been having visions that include Marcus Dent and when William tells Meg that he is back and not happy, she knows something is going to happen.
As things come to a head, Meg is definitely tested and ultimately things follow the path of her visions. When she comes face to face with Marcus, she realizes that he won’t rest until she is dead because he believes that she is the witch that he was told would kill him one day. They are enemies and he won’t rest until she is dead and he has control.
I look forward to the final book of this trilogy. Not only to see what happens next for Meg but how things will get resolved. Will Meg give up her magic? Will she decide to marry Alejandro? What will she do to defeat Marcus considering he most likely won’t stop coming after her until she is dead. What about Elizabeth – will she come back into the story? Will we see her become queen? So many questions yet unanswered! Definitely check this series out if you haven’t already – it combines the historical with the magical and mixes in a bit of a love story. All things I definitely enjoy.
Thank you to Netgalley and Harlequin Teen for the review copy!
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