Okay, so, maybe it’s not quite sex magic, but it might as well be. I almost DNFed this book, but BookSirens reminded me that I had a few more days until I owed them a review.
In A Cover of Her Own, Sunny Chambers moves to her grandmother’s house in Cornwall and begins having dreams of a mystery man. But when Cullen Thaine turns out to be real, Sunny is faced with a new way of living and a love worth fighting for.
A Coven of Her Own is part of Saskia Walker’s Witches of Raven’s Landing series, and is first publishing wise, but really feels like it should be second or third. As stated earlier, I got it as an ARC from BookSirens purely because there was a black girl on the cover, and I really like to see black girls as main characters in fantasy genres.
I honestly didn’t like A Coven of Her Own, but I can’t say that other people wouldn’t. I like hot and steamy sex scenes as much as the next girl, but it really came off as sex magic during the first half, and then I just got annoyed with everyone involved in the second half. It just didn’t pay off the way that I thought that it should have.
The writing was fine, but I don’t like that Sunny’s Moroccan heritage was made a plot point, but it really doesn’t go anywhere. It’s suspected that her maternal grandfather might have had powers, but nobody can really answer that because he abandoned his family when Sunny’s mom was twelve. That should have been the end of it, but Sunny decides to use it as a fakeout later. On the other hand, Sunny’s paternal grandmother’s powers should have been enough, but we really only hear about her as part of the setting. Even when her ghost comes to visit, Grandma Chambers doesn’t feel like a real person.
Sunny’s mentor, having had a previous relationship with the villain, never stops feeling suspect, even when we know she won’t betray the group. I’m not sure if Walker ever delves into their relationship in other books, but it just feels weirdly incomplete here. There’s also the issue of Sunny’s grandmother and the aforementioned mentor basically telling Sunny to use her womanly wiles to throw the villain off his game in order to defeat him. It just doesn’t sit well with me when Sunny spends a good portion of the book arguing with Cullen about how she can handle herself and women in this century can fight their own battles.
I understand how all of that was supposed to come off, but what ends up happening is me wanting Cullen to tell Sunny to go on and keep it.
Speaking of Cullen, he seems to be pretty ill-used. He gets caught up in a scheme of his so-called friend – for reasons that are never fully explained – and now he’s stuck in a time where he’s basically a houseboy. Even his big reveal is useless. Cullen’s frustration at not at least being able to deal with the villain for Sunny is very understandable, but the ending makes it seem as though Cullen is supposed to have his own adventure at some point.
I have to give A Coven of Her Own it’s good writing and great setting, but it’s definitely not a standalone. There’s no real problem with this novel in and of itself, it just doesn’t work for me. I can’t see myself reading any more of Walker’s novels, but if she does get around to giving Cullen his own book I would definitely give that one a chance.
I would recommend this book to any of the girls who love a good paranormal romance that belongs to a greater fictional universe. I’m of the impression that the Witches of Raven’s Landing is supposed to connect to Walker’s Witches of Scotland series, but I could be wrong. Yet and still, I’m quite sure that someone out there would love all of it even if their introduction to it was just me saying it’s not for me.
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Eurydice Howell 