The Witches of East End

The book that inspired the TV show...

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Summary (via melissa-delacruz.com):  It's the beginning of summer in North Hampton, and beautiful Frey Beauchamp is celebrating her engagement to wealthy Bran Gardiner, the heir to Fair Have and Gardiners Island.  But Freya is drawn to Bran's gorgeous but unreliable brother Killian, and sparks fly when the two decide to play a dangerous game, following an ancient story of love, betrayal and tragedy that harks back to the days of Valhalla.

Witches of East End follows the Beauchamp family-the formidable matriarch Joanna and her daughters Frey and Ingrid.  Freya, a sexy bartender, has a potion to cure every kind of heartache, while Ingrid, the local librarian, solves complicated domestic problems with her ability to tie magical knots.  Joanna is the witch to see when modern medicine has no more answers; her powers can wake the dead.   Everything seems to be going smoothly until a young girl, Molly Lancaster, goes missing after taking one of Freya's irresistible cocktails.  As more of the town's residents begin disappearing, everyone seems to have the same suspects in mind: the Beauchamp women.

There are 2 more books in this series!

Review: (3/5 stars): Let me preface this by saying that I binge watched the TV series on Netflix long before I knew it was based on a book, so the entire time I was reading this first installment, my head was picturing the TV show. And I have to admit, that this might be one of those rare circumstances where the book is not as good as the movie/TV show.

The storyline in the TV series is quite different from the one in the book on many levels. That being said, if I had never seen the TV show, I think I would've enjoyed this book, up until the ending. That part felt a little rushed and forced.

Still, I liked getting to know the characters, although why they live the mundane lives they do, working at jobs most of us would consider the first rung on a ladder, is hard to comprehend. I will read the next book in the series, but I think that's mostly because again, I loved the TV show so much.

              Season 1, episode 1

Did you watch the show or read the books?  What did you think?  Leave a comment below~