Book Review: Season of the Witch by Natasha Mostert




Gabriel is a professional hacker and he's very successful at it. Previously he worked for Eyestorm, an organisation that studied Remote Viewers (those able to use telepathy and clairvoyance) and utilised those skills in investigations that the likes of the police and regular private investigators were baffled by. Gabriel was apparently very good at "slamming the ride"- the term used by remote viewers when they entered somebody else's mental space - but left suddenly under a cloud. Now his ex girlfriend is back with a request, her adult stepson is missing and the police have drawn a blank. Can Gabriel use his skills to find out what happened?
At first he is reticent but soon becomes drawn in the investigation and into the lives of the beautiful, intelligent and mysterious sisters, Minnaloushe and Morrighan who seem to hold the key as to what happened to Robert Whittington. Before long the professional and personal are intertwined, Gabriel spends more and more time with the sisters and as he reads one of their diaries he falls in love - but is he in love with a murderer? And could they really be witches?
 It took me a while to get into Season of the Witch, I found Gabriel arrogant and thought giving the sisters such unusual names was predictable rather than interesting, the speed at which he developed a close relationship with them too seemed somewhat unbelievable even given their possible powers. As the story progressed though I found myself more involved as it became an often exciting thriller with references to witchcraft, alchemy, hacking, professional espionage and memory palaces. The story on the whole however, just felt too unevenly paced, parts of the plot never rang true and it had an epigraph I felt was unnecessary. I never really engaged with any of the characters either unfortunately, I don't mind how I feel about a character as long as I feel something and I just didn't care that much about any of them. In the end it wasn't that I didn't enjoy Season of the Witch, it was an easy read with some good moments and much to enjoy for fans of gothic thrillers but personally it's just not a book that I will remember much about.
I received a free copy of this book through Netgalley, in return for my unbiased review.

Season of the Witch is published by Portable Magic Ltd.

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