Author: Adrienne Tooley
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Released: March 9, 2021
Received: Own (OwlCrate)

I received a copy of Sweet & Bitter Magic thanks to my subscription to OwlCrate. Still, I can say with complete honesty that I would have bought this book anyway. I just happened to be really lucky that my guess for March’s theme/novel.

There was a time when every witch had high hopes for Tamsin. She was the most powerful one born of her generation, and magic seemed to come intuitively for her. However, all those hopes crumbled when Tamsin was cursed and exiled. Now she must live a life without love.

Wren, on the other hand, is very much not a witch. No, she’s a source, which means that she is magic herself; she just lacks the ability to use it. This gift of hers is one she has hidden her whole life, fearing how her parents would react. That is until something changes and forces her to accept her magical side in order to save her father and the rest of the world.

“Forgiveness takes time. But none of it will happen until you allow it to.”

Words cannot express how much I loved Sweet & Bitter Magic. A title which proved to be delightfully accurate, if I may say so. Tamsin and Wren’s story is full of beauty and pain in equal measures.

The world that Tooley created here is absolutely fascinating, and I sincerely hope that she will revisit it in future books. I feel like there’s still so much left to explore in those woods. Then there’s the character development, which is divine.

“Her mornings bled into afternoons that melted into evenings like fire turned to embers turned to dust.”

Tooley’s writing borders on poetic at times, and it really helped to enhance the whole story. It became larger than life in my mind while creating these beautiful parallels between Tamsin and Wren. It made for quite the adventure, one that I thoroughly enjoyed. If you want to get a better understanding of what I mean here, check out some of the quotes I’ve included. They’re just a few of the enchanting lines that I picked up on throughout my read.

Long story short, Sweet & Bitter Magic is one of my favorite books to come from my OwlCrate subscription. I’ll confess that I was pretty surprised that it’s hovering below a four-star rating on Goodreads, because this book was everything that I had been looking for. Oh well, to each their own, right?