The Winter Witch

November 12, 2012
Brackston (The Witch’s Daughter) delivers an intimate paranormal romance that grounds its fantasy in the reality of a 19th-century Welsh farm. Widower Cai Jenkins needs a wife to qualify as a porthmon (head drover) and to help run Ffynnon Las (“Blue Well”) farm. Morgana Pritchard, mute by choice, is no blushing bride, however: she has Romany blood, an affinity for animals, and the growing power of a witch. Already an outsider, Morgana runs afoul of locals who blame her for unusual weather and sickness, as well as one who desires Ffynnon Las for the power of its titular well. Whether on a drive with Cai to take cattle and sheep to London or staying home to learn to be the new Witch of the Well, she is challenged by hostile groups who threaten her freedom and life. Brackston provides clear portraits of her protagonists and their lives on the farm, even if her villain veers a bit to the melodramatic and overweening.

November 15, 2012
I married a witch, discovers the kindly Welsh widower making a marriage of necessity to a mute dairymaid. There's a whiff of Harry Potter in the witchy conflict--a battle between undeveloped young magical talent and old malevolence--at the heart of this sprightly tale of spells and romance, the second novel from British writer Brackston (The Witch's Daughter, 2011). Eighteen-year-old Morgana Pritchard, silent by choice since childhood, doesn't know the extent of her magical powers until new husband Cai's housekeeper, Mrs. Jones, a witch herself, starts to teach her and also introduces her to the power of the well on Cai's land. What Morgana does know--because she can smell it--is that there is powerful evil in the community, soon identified as Isolda Bowen, a witch intent on ruining Cai and getting the well for herself. After a cattle drive during which a man is killed, the couple returns home to discover that with Isolda's encouragement, the locals have turned against Morgana, calling her the Winter Witch. But it is when Isolda curses Cai that the young witch must summon all her knowledge and resolve to fight for both their lives. Love of landscape and lyrical writing lend charm, but it's Brackston's full-blooded storytelling that will hook the reader.

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September 15, 2012

Shortlisted for the Creme de la Crime Search for new writers, Brackston debuted with The Witch's Daughter. She's back with a second work starring a young Welsh witch who has yet to master her magic.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2012
Brackston, author of The Witch's Daughter (2011), provides another paranormal historical. This time around she forgoes the time travel, grounding her story firmly in the darkly superstitious Welsh countryside. Never speaking a word and frightened by strange powers she does not fully understand or know how to control, Morgana Pritchard is beginning to arouse suspicions in her neighborhood. It is only after her fearful mother marries her off to a widower from the far hills to protect her that Morgana begins to realize the extent and the purpose of her gift. As Cai and Morgana's love story unfolds and accusations of witchery begin to swirl about, Morgana learns to both harness and respect her magic blood in order to protect both herself and her beloved husband from an insidious enemy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)