The First Coven - P.M. Pevato

RATING: ★★★☆

As you might remember, I reviewed Pevato's Firefly earlier last year - one of the first professional reviews I did - and was not fully convinced by the story. I could tell that P.M. Pevato was a talented writer, but the story was flawed in certain ways that obstructed the reading.

shortandhappyornot.jpg

Now I read a recent short story by Pevato that is part of the Short And Happy (Or Not) anthology. Though I browsed all the stories (and they all look pretty great!), I really wanted to focus this review on The First Coven, since I was amazed by the growth of Pevato as an author.

The First Coven starts off like a fairytale; once upon a time there was a farmer who had three daughters and desperately wanted a son. His wife delivers a son but dies during labour. This sounds pretty standard fairytale-ish right? But then there is a twist. The daughters turn to witch craft in an attempt to awaken their mother from the dead. That is not exactly the Grimm fairytale we are all used to.

And that's exactly what I loved about this story - it was so different. I expected one thing, but the twists constantly took the plot in a new direction. If you like fairytales and magical elements, you will adore this story.

Where I previously critiqued Pevato's writing, I thoroughly enjoyed her writing this time. She used fairytale elements to really bring her story to live and to keep the reader interested. It was an amazing read and since it is a really short story, I don't see any reason as to why you shouldn't be reading it right now.

Firefly - P.M. Pevato

If you have following my reviews for a while, you’ll have discovered that I’m not a fantasy fan. My bookshelves on Goodreads only really have the True Blood books on it (LOVED those btw – maybe a review is in order when the new season starts), and I recently finished Under The Skin (review here) due to my Scarlett obsession – but that’s about it.

firefly.jpg

However, I hope you also noticed that I like to review each book in its own genre and for its own worth. There is no point looking at a book like The Fault In Our Stars in the same way as Under The Skin. So when I was contacted by P.M. Pevato to review her book Firefly, I jumped at the chance. I love reading books that I normally wouldn’t pick up and I love the passion she had for her own story.

Firefly is about Tessa, or Bugs as her friends call her, and her witch coven. There are weird things happening in their small town and the witches have to figure out what is going on. The reader switches between Tessa’s point of view and that of William – a witch hunter. I don’t want to give any big plot points away, but I think about 80% of you can guess where this is going.

I appreciate fantasy for the creativity of the author and this book is proof of this creativity. I could never think of a whole structure of a witch coven and how they interact. However, besides the creativity, the book didn’t do too much for me.

The characters remained rather flat and I felt like I didn’t get enough insight information about Tessa and William. The book was very action-focused and I would have loved some more inner dialogue from the main characters. I have heard this book is the first in a series, so maybe there will be more character depth in the second book, but for now… It just wasn’t enough to get me really involved with any of the characters. This was further enhanced by the many short sentences in the book. There just wasn’t enough description and when there was, the short sentences made it feel rushed – like the reader doesn’t have the time to really take it in. But I guess this is a very personal preference of mine for medium to long sentences.

The ending left me slightly confused, but I guess that’s fair enough since it will urge people to want the second book of the series.

It was a decent read and I think that if you are into fantasy, this might be your quick-to-read beach book that leaves satisfied, but not completely blown away.