Witch's War: Rise of Witches Book Two in Review / Write / Read Club (Indie & Self-Published)

May 30, 2024 Rik Ty rated it it was amazing

This book had plenty of fun ideas. I guess I’m going to speak about a few — so, slight spoiler warning— but I’ll keep it to a minimum. Also, and this might be important, this is the second book in a series, and I haven’t read the first (I only remembered that fact after I wrote this whole review, and rather than delete everything, I just added this sentence).

Witches in this world are “gifted” people — much closer to super heroes or Jedi warriors than occultists (at least those we meet in this bo This book had plenty of fun ideas. I guess I’m going to speak about a few — so, slight spoiler warning— but I’ll keep it to a minimum. Also, and this might be important, this is the second book in a series, and I haven’t read the first (I only remembered that fact after I wrote this whole review, and rather than delete everything, I just added this sentence).

Witches in this world are “gifted” people — much closer to super heroes or Jedi warriors than occultists (at least those we meet in this book). The main character, Tamara, draws power from nature, and like an athlete, she can only perform under high demand for finite periods of time before needing to rest and recharge, which is nice, because the author gets to use that for some of the ebb and flow of the reading experience.
Late in the story, Tamara retrieves a locket that helps her perform beyond her natural limitations. This is not only fun for the story and its escalation, but I found the author’s idea for the locket’s power source to actually be quite beautiful.

This is a quick novel that is limited to a small geographic location: we have the King’s castle, the gifted people’s headquarters (castle) and the woods between. Almost everything that happens in the novel happens in one of these locales. The novel seems interested in keeping things quick, so the limited staging makes sense. The desire for quickness results in a character taking over a kingdom in an over-simplified way. Its simplicity keeps the plot moving briskly, but it’s distracting (what? You just have to kill the King to be in charge? Why doesn’t everyone do it?) The usurper is under the spell of an evil witch, and the existing army’s willingness to follow his orders could be attributed to the same type of dark spell, but it would need at least a sentence, early on, to establish the idea (for people who haven’t read the first book, ahem, cough cough).

I enjoyed Tamara as a character. She pushes herself forward, even as she second guesses her plans of action. She’s kind, even at personal costs, and she seems sympathetic to other people’s points of view, even when those people are her adversaries.

The fight scenes are good. The soldiers have an anti-magic weapon that I haven’t seen before - sort of like a hand-held cannon. I’m not sure if it runs on magic or science, or if it is a tool of the dark witch (she seems to be manipulating the humans to get rid of her gifted competition), but the cannon makes all the battle scenes more interesting.
There are cool teleportation devices (stone circles), kids in danger, temptations to the “dark side” and other fun things wrapped in a quick, fast-paced package.

Fans of magic books should definitely check out this series.
Hmm, last idea. I guess this a “good witch-warrior” story. Maybe that’s a sub-genre. If it is, this is an excellent entry into its ranks. ...more

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Jul 18, 2024 Lynn Helton rated it really liked it

Shelves: speculative-fiction

This enjoyable fantasy story has witches, betrayals, conflicts both large and small, and plenty of magic. It moves at a quick pace, with things happening in rapid succession. Although, at times, too rapidly. While there was a reason that witches could swiftly travel great distances, other people seemed to have some unmentioned way to move almost as quickly – that army was able to travel awfully fast, and with a catapult, too.

I liked that some main characters were older, such as one who is 125 ye ...more

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May 06, 2024 P.J. Ashton rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy

Witch's War is a clean fantasy suitable for children and young adults. The novel is fast paced with short chapters and that keeps you reading and engrossed in the story. A.K. Stuntz's writing is good, although sometimes lacking description of the world. My personal feelings are, if you're introducing the reader to a new world, then it's important to describe the places, after all, what sets them apart from our world?

The story focuses mainly on a witch, Tamara. At the start she is betrayed by her Witch's War is a clean fantasy suitable for children and young adults. The novel is fast paced with short chapters and that keeps you reading and engrossed in the story. A.K. Stuntz's writing is good, although sometimes lacking description of the world. My personal feelings are, if you're introducing the reader to a new world, then it's important to describe the places, after all, what sets them apart from our world?

The story focuses mainly on a witch, Tamara. At the start she is betrayed by her husband, who murders the king and takes the throne. He then turns on her and she barely escapes with her life. The rest of the novel follows her as she attempts to right her mistake. The new king obviously wants her out of the way, using the resources of his kingdom to do this, while also hunting down other gifted (magic users) who might be a danger to him in the future.

The other characters are also returnees from the first book. Tristan is another POV, Janelle also plays an important part of the story. There is another character named Drew, who at first seems to be an ally to Tamara, but also holds a secret of his own which you discover slowly as the story unfolds. On the whole, the characters are interesting and engaging. Janelle being the one with the humour, while Tamara seems cold due to the betrayal.

The main issues I tended to have were regarding plot. The author sets up the premise where anyone who kills the king can become king, but there's nothing regarding political infighting or political intrigue in the palace. In this story, a man can kill a king, take his place and then anyone under him follows his command, even though they hold no allegiance to him. How and why? What happened to the people at court? Are they happy with this? why is the new king not under threat? How is he able to cement his position with no one attempting to kill him? He needs to sleep at some point, surely it's pretty easy for a well-connected person at court to slip into his chambers and stab him through the heart while he sleeps! Yes, it's true, he does have the company of a very powerful dark witch and he can also perform magic, but she's not with him all the time. Instead we're told that this is the system and we just have to accept that everyone follows his command without question. I just wished this political side was fleshed out, seeing as we do spend some time with the new king, however his POV is mostly wasted to tell us that he's going after Tamara.

Overall, the story is inoffensive and clean, lacking blood, sex, violence and if this type of fantasy is your thing, it's an entertaining way to spend a weekend. ...more

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Jul 24, 2024 Geoff Sease rated it liked it

I read Book Two before Book One, making it more difficult to track the entry to this installment’s storyline. Beyond that, I would give Witch’s War a thumbs up for its creative fantasy world construction. In the vein of Tolkien and other fantasy novels, Witch’s War relies on extensive journey and travel across a make-believe world to expose its plot, its characters, and its important places, reminding me of my enjoyment of this genre from when I was young.

However, I struggled with elements of t ...more

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