Review of “Waking the Witch” by Kelley Armstrong

You could pick up the novel “Waking the Witch” without having ever heard of Kelley Armstrong or the Otherworld series. In fact, you could enjoy “Waking the Witch” without knowing anything about the author’s other novels. It holds appeal for both crime readers and paranormal fans. If you are familiar with the other novels (or at least some of them) in the series, though, you’ll enjoy “Waking the Witch” even more.

“Waking the Witch” is the eleventh book in Kelley Armstrong’s Otherworld series. The series began with “Bitten”, about the world’s only female werewolf. As the werewolf stories progressed, other supernatural characters were brought into the series. Some of the most important of these other characters are the witches (and wizards) who became the central characters in many of the novels.

Witch/private investigator Savannah Levine is the main character in “Waking the Witch”. When her co-workers (and former guardians) Paige and Lucas go away on vacation, she tries tackling her first solo investigation. At first, she seems to have entered a boring, dying small town on a simple murder investigation. However, the situation soon spirals into something much more complicated and deadly. As more people keep dying, an unknown killer and witch hunter on the loose, and something wrong with her powers, Savannah must face both the criminals she’s investigating and some of her own demons as well.

Overall I really enjoyed “Waking the Witch”. It’s in keeping with the rest of the Otherworld series and mentions a lot of the characters you’ll recognize from the previous Otherworld novels. especially Savannah’s long-time crush, the half-demon and all-around good guy Adam. Yet there is a difference in how much of this novel reads from the rest of the series. Whereas most of the novels are definitely paranormal with some who-done-it thrown in to keep the story fast paced and exciting, most of “Waking the Witch” reads more like a crime novel where some of the characters happen to be supernatural. The story is interesting with a lot of sub-plots and areas of intrigue.

Yet I felt like the climax of the novel did let the rest of the story down a bit. There was so much build up about different possibilities, that the final revelation of the murderer seemed out of keeping with the rest of the novel. Even so, it left me eager to read the next book in the series. For as many things as were solved about this mystery, it also left open some questions and possibilities to be resolved in future books.

If you’re interested in “Waking the Witch”, then I definitely recommend reading Armstrong’s other books (not only the Otherworld series, but also the books about Nadia Stafford).


People also view

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *