Written by: Susan Dennard
Release Date: January 5th, 2016
Pages: 416, Hardback
Series: The Witchlands, #1
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On a continent ruled by three empires, some are born with a “witchery”, a magical skill that sets them apart from others.

In the Witchlands, there are almost as many types of magic as there are ways to get in trouble—as two desperate young women know all too well.

Safiya is a Truthwitch, able to discern truth from lie. It’s a powerful magic that many would kill to have on their side, especially amongst the nobility to which Safi was born. So Safi must keep her gift hidden, lest she be used as a pawn in the struggle between empires.

Iseult, a Threadwitch, can see the invisible ties that bind and entangle the lives around her—but she cannot see the bonds that touch her own heart. Her unlikely friendship with Safi has taken her from life as an outcast into one of reckless adventure, where she is a cool, wary balance to Safi’s hotheaded impulsiveness.

Safi and Iseult just want to be free to live their own lives, but war is coming to the Witchlands. With the help of the cunning Prince Merik (a Windwitch and ship’s captain) and the hindrance of a Bloodwitch bent on revenge, the friends must fight emperors, princes, and mercenaries alike, who will stop at nothing to get their hands on a Truthwitch.

My review of this book is as follows: ALSEKRUALSDFJSDF *High pitch keening sounds from across the globe*

Alright, alright fine, I’ll settle down and write up a real review. If you read my really feelsy Truthwitch post(here) you know this book means a lot to me. In fact it means so much that I was really afraid that I wouldn’t even like this book. There’s been a LOT of hype around it, and I know often times hype makes people nervous. No one wants to be that blacksheep that hates the book everyone loves.

I’m so very glad to say I wasn’t a blacksheep with Truthwitch. Of course this book is so solid that I’m rather confident that if you enjoy the books that I read, you’re gonna enjoy this one. If you enjoy high fantasy even you’re really likely going to enjoy this one. The book is just that solid.

Not to mention RELATIONSHIPS! Not just romantic relationships either. Powerful friendships and I adore seeing that in print. I know that was Dennard’s point with this book was to work with friendships but still. This book excels at it.

I think the hardest part for me in this book was starting out Dennard kind of throws us into this world. It’s a VERY large and VERY deep world which is amazing. The world building is FANTASTIC. But the problem is that her characters know and understand the world perfectly. There isn’t a lot of explanation at the start. We’re tossed into a world of crazy depth with no real rope to grasp to and be able to understand what was going on. By the middle of the book I had that grasp and I understood what was going on really well. But getting there was a more than a little confusing.

When I gave this book to my mother she also pointed out that a few of the characters had similar names, I have to admit that I never noticed this, but several times she came to me asking me to double check who was who because she was getting people mixed up. In a high fantasy world you’ve got such different names already that I can’t imagine that helped. But I just found it an interesting aspect that my mother came up against when reading Truthwitch.

I mentioned relationships already but I’m going more in depth here.
FRIENDSHIP – The friendship between Safi and Iseult was so strong! They truly are sisters. They would do anything for each other and they knew each other so well that with one word they could cheer the other up. That’s always the goals with friendships.
FRIENDSHIP  –  Merik and Kullen’s bromance is probably what you see when you look up the word bromance in the dictionary. They adored each other and they strengthened each other throughout the whole book.
ROMANCE – The actual romance between Merik and Safi was actually the best thing. I think I screamed more than I ever should have. It was such a slow burn that was done so good and I just ugh. I can’t. I really can’t. I shipped it so hard and it felt so real.
ROMANCE – Okay so there’s another romance that’s going to come. I can tell it. I know it’ll come in Windwitch. But like I already ship it because these two characters are so PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER AND I’M SCREAMING ABOUT IT.

I really just can’t fangirl enough about this book. But I also don’t want to take any of the amazing surprises out of this book. So much of this book was character driven. The characters chose where to take the plot and those are my favorite kind of books. So when all I mention here is the relationships instead of talking about the plot and the plot twists. Well it’s because of those amazing characters that the plot even existed.

If you’re worried about this book, I understand, but I think you should give it a try. Don’t avoid it because you’re worried about the hype.