I first read this book when I was young and loved it then, and it still made me feel the same way as it did back then.

I gave this one a shot and opted to DNF it - it's not quite my cup of tea. Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a copy for review!

Do you ever have a reading experience where it feels less like reading a book and more of an encounter with your past self? This was definitely one of those. When I saw this come up on Netgalley to celebrate its twentieth anniversary, I hit Request immediately but had failed to truly anticipate the waves of nostalgia that reading it would provoke. As a teenager, I had a hardback copy of Witch Child. So did nearly all of my schoolfriends, even the ones that barely read anything. The image of the girl on the front cover seemed to suggest a level of wisdom and experience that we had yet to discover in our corner of West Lancashire. Picking this up again, memories came flooding back of the damp temporary classroom where we had our tutor time, the brown and orange seats of the school bus and the peeling seats of the Year 11 common room. In the truest sense of the term, it was another life. The links that books can forge with our past are powerful and this one was particularly poignant.

Set in England immediately after the restoration, Witch Child centres around teenager Mary Newbury. As the novel opens, she watches helplessly as her grandmother is accused, tried and then finally executed for witchcraft. With eyes beginning to turn on her too, Mary is snatched from the crowds by a mysterious well-wisher who bundles her away, placing her with a congregation ready to depart for the New World. But Mary still cannot let her guard down. Still whispers and suspicion dog her steps. When the ship loses wind during the voyage, tensions rise. Mary gradually realises that there are more women and girls like her out there than she had realised. When they finally reach the New World, she meets another such but when Mary remarks that she has hoped for a fresh start, she is warned tartly that things are worse here than they had been back in England. Folk have brought their superstitions along with them and these false beliefs have flourished and bloomed. Truly, this is The Crucible for children.

It's clear to me now why this book strikes such a chord in the teenaged girl market. Girl feels misunderstood and out of place? Girl feels that she cannot express her true being without being persecuted? Girl feels alone and adrift? There is a reason why I read and reread it and the sequel Sorceress during those last few years of secondary school and sixth form college. At its bones there is a 'Mary versus the Mean Girls' story but in this case the Mean Girls are the ones who are going to get her hanged for witchcraft. I knew about the Mean Girls in those years. Then there is also the joy and connection that Mary finds in her friendship with Native American Jaybird with just the hint that it may lead to something more. I can see why I loved this book so much.

But I was also surprised to realise how far I had imprinted my own viewpoint on it. I remembered the romance between Mary's friend Rebekah and Tobias as some kind of 'slow burn'. In truth, it barely exists on the page. As a prim teenager, it left a far stronger impression than it would now. Indeed, Rees' writing style was a lot blanker than I remembered. This was interesting to me since that I tend to find a similar kind of emotional blandness to a lot of young adult fiction - I don't get hit 'in the feels' the way that a lot of other bloggers mention. Was I somehow more capable back then of populating a book with an inner life than I am now? Did I 'dive in' more? Read less critically? Read more 'for fun'? Or was it because Mary was relating experiences about which I was utterly ignorant? Since I read Witch Child, I have been heartbroken, grief-stricken, depressed, broken-down, built-up, fallen in love, had sex, gotten pregnant, given birth and become a parent. It's been an action-packed twenty years. Perhaps little wonder I returned to the book more jaded.

I'm slightly in shock that a piece of media that I loved as a teenager is old enough to be celebrating its twentieth anniversary. I don't feel middle-aged. Last year I attended the wedding of a dear friend from university and was startled to reconnect with various friends who I had not seen since graduation, ten years before. What was noticeable was that the vast majority of us had children but also an overwhelming percentage had developed dietary requirements. Life is speeding by. The girl who read Witch Child during tutor time, on the school bus and in the common room feels like a creature from a long time ago. For her, it was definitely not true that schooldays are the best of your life. In fact, things improved for her quite rapidly once they were over.

I am a happier woman in my thirties than I ever was as a teenager and yet for all of that, I am glad that I had Witch Child to help me through adolescence. In contrast to the more titanic protagonists of franchises such as Twilight and The Hunger Games, Mary Newbury feels less burnished and more human. She has integrity and she has courage but she also has to use her wits to survive. It is this resourcefulness which means that she is still such a compelling character even as fashions in Young Adult literature have shifted. Mary Newbury is a survivor, a girl who looks at her circumstances and determines to rise above them and remain true to herself. It was a pleasure to revisit her and I pray that she continues to shine a light to other young girls trudging through adolescence. Heroines like her can make a difference - she certainly did for me.

I’m afraid to say this book as not for me, I could not get into it. I wish the author all the best for the future. I’ll rate is 3 stars as possibly to some people this book will be right up there street. Just unfortunately not for me.

Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Four Stars

Witch Child was one of those famous books everyone had read when I was a kid and one that I never felt particularly inclined to get around to for whatever reason. That being said, having read it as an adult I think I probably would've enjoyed it when I was younger - the set-of of a fictional historian discovering a quilt with diary pages of a girl accused of witchcraft was a stroke of genius, and my imagination would've totally latched onto that and run wild as a preteen.

Rees deals with the subject matter with surprising maturity and complexity for a book accessible for younger audiences. Of course, there isn't as much violence and horror as would likely have been the reality, but there's still a chilling realism to the attitudes and stupidity of the town and how far they'll take their beliefs. As with much fiction about the 'New World', you spend most of it despairing that literally anything can and was twisted to be incriminating if someone felt like it. Although, even with that, the climax was a little sudden and abrupt, presumably because it cut out all the really dark bits - not a problem for me, personally, if it makes the material more accessible.

Mary herself was a great protagonist. Her prose was articulate but didn't feel constructed; she had everyday worries as much as her overarching obstacles, and I really liked the fact that she was aware she would be considered a witch - and she possibly considered herself one too. It added a layer of conflict between self-preservation and self-acceptance. I enjoyed the general ambiguity over whether there was more afoot than hysteria, racism and misogyny.

Twenty (one) years on, and Witch Child seems to remain as interesting and celebrated a novel it was when I was a kid. It's well-suited to the 12-15 range (is that what it's aimed at?) but enjoyable for older readers too. A mature but accessible door into a very recognisable and important piece of American (and British) history.

There were parts of this book I really enjoyed and parts I struggled with. It's a book I think my younger self would have really enjoyed but now it just wasn't something I could get into. The writing is really lovely and the diary entries themselves are well paced but the actual plot is very slow moving. I just don't think this book was particularly for me but I think those that enjoy historical fiction more would get more from this. It's quite 'typical' of a book surrounding this sort of time for witchy women and does talk about themes of persecution, witch hunts and trials. It was a fine read, but I probably won't continue with the sequel.

I LOVED this novel when I read it for the first time at school. Mysterious and atmospheric with a strong thread of character storylines throughout. So happy it's being celebrated for the 20th anniversary.

Now I'll admit I've never really been into 'witch' stories or anything at all fantasy based but for some reason this book really intrigued me.

Like most people I've picked up snippets of the Salem Witch Trials over the years and I think this is along the same lines but another version of that story.

For someone who hasn't had alot of experience of this type of novel and the fact it's a YA, I actually really enjoyed the whole story. Its really compelling, you WANT to know what happens, you WANT Mary to be ok!

In all honesty, nothing much really happens but it's a a pleasant read that sort of flirts with fantasy but in a way that feels so real.

Told from the POV of Mary, in diary form, it follows her travels aboard a ship to a 'better land'. But not everything is as is promised.

The characters are authentic, unique and mostly likeable. I especially liked Martha and Jonas

I would have rated higher but I felt that once the story hit a more suspenseful the author seemed to rush ahead and the ending came too soon, especially after so much of the book based on Mary's travels at sea, I'd have hoped her time on land was just as long.

A great read for younger readers and definitely one that I myself enjoyed and was gripped by. I'll be downloading the second installment!

Huge thanks to netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing PLC for the ARC.

I missed out on this book when i was in it's target age group but it's always sort of interested me, so I was thrilled to be approved to read the ebook by Netgalley!

To start, I have to admit that anything to do with witches and witch trials is going to be a winner for me, especially if it's in the historical fiction genre. So i went into this book with a little bit of positive bias because of that, and I wasn't disappointed!

Witch Child is definitely the perfect book to read this Autumn, it's not too heavy but it's also eerie and spooky enough to be atmospheric and gripping. If you're an older reader like me (25 years old) this is the perfect quick read to transition into more spooky reading without being too deep or too taxing.

I also picked up a copy of it's sequel, Sorceress, which I can't wait to read now that I've finished Witch Child!

This is an absolute classic, that I remember devouring 20 years ago when it first came out! I was 15 then, but I think it's suitable for 12+. Mary's grandmother,a wise woman/ midwife/ witch we had looked after her all her life, does, and her diary describes her voyage to America with the puritans. The historical detail is great, and Mary is a strong character, who deserves herself as a witch. The societal and religious pressures of the time are well described, and the violence against the native American tribes. Recommended!

Mary is a young woman in the 17th Century who is forced to try to make a new life for herself across the world after her Grandmother is accused and hanged for crimes of witchcraft. Mary faces a perilous journey across the Atlantic. She is different from her travelling companions because she is educated and knowledgeable in midwifery and healing. She tries her best to keep her head down and fit in, but arriving in America, the superstitions, ignorance and fears of her fellow settlers will see her turned against.

The novel is told through Diary entries of a young woman and we see first-hand, all the struggles and dangers she faces. I thought that the novel presented a good picture of society in both England and America and their beliefs at that time. Mary’s voice is strong and believable. It was easy to feel a great deal of empathy for Mary and all she faces. Overall, the story was full of action and the tension between Mary trying to make a new life and her fears of being accused of witchcraft were well portrayed. I like the way the novel ended and I would read the sequel. I have given it a 5 out of 5 rating, with thanks to Bloomsbury publishing Plc and NetGalley for this this special edition ARC.

There were certain aspects of this narrative that I really enjoyed, but overall I found it to be a bit generic in terms of a New England witchcraft story. It tells the tale of Mary Newbury, a 14 year girl forced to flee to America in 1659 when her grandmother is hanged for witchcraft. Told through journal entries, we follow Mary as she sets sail and the narrative is split into the different journeys she undertakes. I thought that this was a clever way to structure the narrative and I enjoyed the diary entries overall, although there were times when certain passages through me out of the story a bit, as I questioned how they had come to be recorded. The community described is what you would come to expect from a settlers village, with a variety of different families ranging in piety and usefulness. I thought the interaction with Native peoples was interesting, but cursory and could have been developed in more depth. Similarly, I found the last act of the book to be very similar in nature to many other witch trial narratives, in that we have a group of girls exhibiting signs of possession. Consequently, although I did enjoy the narrative, I don't think it did anything particularly interesting or different.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Thank you so much to Bloomsbury kids and NetGalley for the ebook to read and review.

This was such an interesting book, it’s an area that I’ve been wanting to read more on such as the mayflower travellers and the Salem witches so this book was great to give me some of that.

Mary was a very unique character she wrote her journal in a very odd way in my opinion and didn’t overly feel natural. I also found it interesting with the fact she started it stating she was a witch, how very dangerous to write such a thing back in that era. She was always getting herself into a situation that was bound to end her in trouble, she seemed like she didn’t think or consider her surroundings once in the whole story.

The story itself was very fascinating we got such an interesting adventure with her, from her grandma being tried and killed, being taken away and then trust onto a journey to a new world with total strangers and then starting that unusual new life with these said strangers.

I really liked that she had managed to make friends and create a family all of her own whilst there, I was sad that we didn’t get anymore of Jack they were so sweet together. The whole time reading once she landed in Beluah I kept wanting her and her friends to keep moving and keep going until Boston, I wanted her out of their grasp and judgment so she was safe. It never happened though.

The characters we meet were pretty horrible for the most part, the villagers were all so stuck in their ways and contradicting of themselves and of the bible. They preached and preached and condemned but didn’t use the other parts of the bible that state only God can judge. Said a lot about them instantaneously. I really liked the Rivers family, Martha, Tobias and Jonah plus the natives as you are expected too.

This wasn’t as I was expecting this story to be, but it was still a very interesting story and I did enjoy reading it.

This is an excellent piece of historical fiction, told main in the form of diary entries. After her grandmother is tried and hanged for being a 'witch' 14 year old Mary finds herself off to a new life in America, supposedly for her own safety. But life on the voyage to New England, with a group of Puritan families, is not much better than the life she thought she had left behind. And things do not get any better at the new settlement across the Atlantic, where religion and superstition are rife and a young girl like Mary is soon looked upon with suspicion and fear.

I really enjoyed this book with its excellent character development and atmospheric setting, and I am greatly looking forward to the sequel that is coming soon.

I read this book at the beginning of my Wicca path as it was a sort of must-read. I quite liked and found it well written and engrossing.
I loved the well thought characters and the vivid historical background.
I think it didn't age well but it's still an engrossing read and I'm happy I reread it.
I recommend it to anyone who's starting the path or young adult.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book for review.

This book was originally published in 2000, but is being reprinted with a new cover for it's 20 year anniversary this year!

In this story - written in diary format - we follow Mary. A girl who, at the beginning of this novel, witnesses her grandmother be charged with being a witch and hung. After this event, Mary flees England to start a new life in America. I have to say, this wasn't quite what I had expected going into it. I had expected witchcraft to be a big part of the story but actually it's more about following Mary on her journey to America and her life there afterwards. Around half of the story is spent travelling to America, which wasn't my favourite part to read about and felt too stretched out. Once the journey was over though, I started to enjoy it more and found it really interesting seeing the settlement get built from nothing. I also really enjoyed meeting some of the Natives, who lived on the land too.

I did find the writing to be quite basic - I feel like this book would be suited to younger readers/teens.

Having first read Witch Child at the age of 11 when it was released and now re-reading it again as the 20th anniversary edition is released. Despite feeling incredibly old, the book has not aged and still is a fantastic read. It captures the reader from the first page and takes them on a journey through the Wicca world. 20 years later it's still a relevant and extremely worth while read.

I read this book when it first came out, and i remember it staying with me for a long time after finishing. I remember the striking cover too. I think this book was one of the reasons I became interested in Wicca and witchcraft.

Re-reading the book again as an adult, it didn't quite have the same effect. I enjoyed it, but it didn't feel as dramatic or magical as it did the first time around when I was younger. The book focussed a lot on the travelling to america - which I don't remember from before.
I felt like the book was just getting started, and then it finished!!??!! I appreciate there are other books in the series, but I expected a little bit more action in this. It took a long time to get started, and then when it did, it finished!!