I guess I had expected more related to the witch trials for this book based on the blurb and marketing. Instead it was more about Alice living in medieval Ireland with all the corruption, violence and brutality of the time, dealing with people who wanted to take advantage of her or were jealous of her and how she navigated her ambition against that. The witch hunt focus wasn’t until the very end, and sort of glossed over quickly.

The story itself wasn’t bad at all, just again, not what I expected or anticipated. It also had a sort of poetic quality more than a character-development focus, so it was a little atypical in the way the story flowed. The book worked thru how cunning Alice was, what circumstances she was dealt, as well as how utterly and shockingly foolish her character judgement and poor choice was in men. 

Ultimately I just didn’t like any of the characters. I think I would have been ok with the rest of it if not for that. They were all just awful people, either violent and cruel, self serving and vengeful, outside of the brief bits of husband #3, Richard De Valle. 

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are mine.