WITCHES STEEPED IN GOLD

RELEASED OUT NOW! 560 pages | Paperback/ebook/ audiobook

Author Ciannon Smart

Publisher Hot Key Books

Author Ciannon Smart has successfully soaked her Jamaican heritage into this debut novel, bathing her pages in the culture, patois and descriptions of that beautiful island. Witches Steeped In Gold isn’t actually set in Jamaica, mind you: this is a magic-filled fantasy world stuffed to the rafters with powerful women and narrated by two witches. Jazmyne is the daughter of a hateful dictator she’s desperate to see unthroned, while Iraya, who begins the book in jail, is the rightful heir to the kingdom. It’s not long before she escapes and embarks upon a mission of revenge, but will Jazmyne join her cause?

Annoyingly, both women are written in the first person in their own chapters, which can be frustrating because their thought processes (and prose style) are so similar that you occasionally forget who’s talking – the main difference often boils down to “This must be Iraya because she’s more angry than Jazmyne.”

Some plot choices are odd as well, such as a fascinating lady pirate popping up before vanishing, and an important, Hunger Games-style challenge being discussed but not really shown. More humour might have helped warm the book a little too – but the evocative locations and the twisty-turny action of the final act help to overcome the faults. Jayne Nelson