The cover is what originally drew me to the book. I love a good Horror with a fantasy element to it.
The Island town of Drybell, Connecticut is being hit by a storm and some strange things start happening. Sherif Sterling Marsh is on her last shift before resigning and quickly realises her last shift is going to be anything but quiet.
A Transport truck accident is currently blocking the only bridge in and out of town and they can't seem to find or get a hold of the deputy who was handling the accident. They did manage to arrest the man in the other vehicle and have taken him back to the station to put in lock up.
They had a call for a missing child from the Grocery store. No trace of the boy could be found.
When a distress call comes in from City Hall Sterling heads out to deal with it and stumbles across an Eerie scene that leaves her completely unnerved. She finds a woman there dressed as a Witch, pointed Witches hat and all and wonders why she would be dressed like that two weeks before Christmas. The Witch is facing the wall and is not moving. Sterling puts her in handcuffs and decides to take her back to the station as well when she can't get the Witch to respond to any of her questions or demands. They are currently dealing with a storm like no other that seems to have knocked out their communication capabilities, so being able to call for support has been impossible, Leaving Sterling and her Deputy Chase completely understaffed, with only Rosa manning the phones and Georgia currently watching Chase's young son Max until he can go home.

The Witch is an excellent character, the creepiness of her stillness and lack of communication combined with finding her suddenly moved made my skin crawl. I found the story started out a little slow and then once the pace picked up it did not slow down again.
I really enjoyed the story, it was nice to read about a Witch that was dark and menacing, however the ending left me hanging and with a lot of questions.
Glad I had an opportunity to read this book though.

2.5 stars because I enjoyed reading about all the characters, and the witch, but I found that the end wasn't convincing enough.

Emotionally challenged main character? Check.
Creative descriptions of events? Check
Creepy witches with a hidden agenda? Double check.
Witch 13 takes you on a wild ride of a female sheriff who has no idea how to deal with life or emotions beyond the job. Traumatic deaths, creepy scenarios, and a brave little boy make this story exciting. I can’t quite piece together the ending, but overall enjoyable.

I really love witchy books and this did not disappoint! Gave me all the spooky witchy vibes I wanted and sent chills through me! Loved it!

Witch 13 by Patrick Delaney was received directly from the publisher and I chose to review it. I generally do not read "witch" books as the trope has not really grown in years, however the reviews I read kind of promised this was different. They were correct, this book has a classic witch (picture the Wicked Witch of theWest from the Wizard of Oz), with a wand, and she wreaks havoc. I also generally do not like long drawn-out dialogue, give me action, not words. This book has a lot of dialogue and "atmosphere" as some call it, that did not bore me. If you or someone you buy gifts for want to read a wicked witch book that takes place in New England around Christmas, give this book a read.

Certainly a chilling, edge of your seat read. And wow, what a cover!

Having been immediately drawn in to this creepy tale which was full of tension and atmosphere, I was constantly caught off guard by the twists and turns. I really enjoy a dark, mysterious novel such as this one. The descriptions of the storm and the power going off and on, the stillness of the witch and the scene being cut off from outside help, all contributed to the horror and foreboding.

Not quite a full five star read for me, as I didn't agree/approve of some of the main character's actions and I feel that the writing could benefit from a few tweaks, particularly the ending, which could do with more explanation.

I received this arc from netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

Sterling Marsh is a woman who struggles with change, loss, and relationships and tonight she's having to say goodbye to everything she's ever known in the years she's served for the Sheriff's office in Drybell, Connecticut. To say she's not ready would be an understatement, and there is a lot more to be confronted tonight after a crash on the bridge unleashes a mysterious witch on her community. Death, destruction, mystery, and revelation all ensue and soon there is very little of the life she clung to left at all.

Overall this is a nice book, particularly if you like something in the style of classic Ray Bradbury or Robert Bloch, who both had a way with blending the modern and the surreal when they wrote horror suspense. However, I did find myself frustrated with the way many of the characters seemed to lose the thread of their very nature in the latter third of the book up to and including taking actions that honestly didn't fit the character or common sense beyond getting us to a nice dramatic closing battle sequence. We had a few interesting female characters who started out strong and then lapsed into roles that stripped away their strength in favor of making them fit a more broad stereotype of femininity in distress and sympathetic masculine characters who similarly dropped those traits in favor of fitting toxic or macho traits under pressure. Between these traits, some mixed results when it came to the traits of the witch herself, and plot inconsistencies with pacing and logic leaps I felt the book fell apart in the last third.

It was the cover that got me. I am super into witch stuff and so that cover meant I had to request this book. Question is, would the cover be the best thing about it?

The answer is....

I found it a little tricky to get into at first. I wasn't exactly sure what was happening but once I realised this was all on one night and no one else had any idea what was going on either I was good. In fact I was hooked.

It is very fast paced, actually at times maybe too fast paced as I felt like there were a few plot points that could have been fleshed out a bit more but the actual events on that night are brilliantly done. It is creepy and tense and yes at times violent and gory but it didn't feel gratuitous but fitted within the story.

My only real criticism of it is that I felt some why is missing from it that would transformed this into a 5 star read for me. Without the fundamental questions being answered once you finished it just made the ending feel unsatisfactory which is a shame as I think it is brilliant horror/supernatural writing over all.

MASSIVE SPOILERS BELOW

Why does Sterling not know she is Witch 13. How did she end up becoming Sterling and why do they want her back now and at not at any other point in her life?

So was the cover the best thing about this book? No. I am glad I read it. I consumed it in 2 days so that should say something but the ending felt frustrating and yes, the cover is frigging glorious.

I wanted a scary book and this gave me everything I could have wanted and more. This is the perfect atmospheric horror which the author perfectly depicts and makes you feel as though you are living through the horror with the characters. Even though I was reading this book in daylight on my commute to work I still felt myself getting goosebumps and I would love to reread this in the dark.

'The woman didn't move; she was still, like one of those Halloween witches people put on their porch to scare away kids like her.'

This follows Sheriff Sterling two weeks before Christmas just before shes about to leave her job hopefully quietly. However incidents begin occurring all over town including a truck crashing blocking the towns entrance, a boy going missing from a supermarket and her deputy is missing. When Sterling is called to the city hall she comes across a scene that is so unbelievable that she can not even explain it to the rest of her team. When she finds a woman on the scene she immediately knows something is wrong but she does not know quite how bad things are about to get.

I loved Sterling despite her flaws and her bad decisions she makes her choices based on the experiences and how someone in that moment would react to that situation. She felt very real to me and her relationships with those around her was so flawed but extremely realistic in terms of a workplace.

The witch also plays off the characters weaknesses in the book which was really interesting to read about. It showed how no matter how perfect you seem everyone has a past and the witch likes to depict that in such a horrific way it made me feel so interested yet so uncomfortable with how it played out.

This book is how I love witches to be portrayed rather than the more recent development of the ‘good witch’ and finding a horror book about witches is so hard to find recently. The violence of the witch was not over the top gory but still made you feel creeped out by the situations and the entire thing made you feel hopeless. I really enjoyed that you knew the book was not going to have a resolved ending as the witch made the entire situation feel despairing.

The illustrations throughout this book also made it even more interesting and added an interesting element which helped visualise certain situations throughout the book. I think more books need illustrations especially in the way these used black and white just added to the eeriness of the book.  

I ended up rating this book four stars which is a really high rating for me in a horror. It had everything I could want; witches, a creepy atmosphere and illustrations which is always a bonus in books. I really want to get to Delaneys other works around Halloween and see if I like them as much as I liked this one.

Thank you to Netgalley for this review copy!

I don’t get scared much by books these days, but this was awesomely creepy. It got to the point where I avoided reading this at night!

Sheriff Sterling Marsh was on her last day at work. It was the eve of her resignation, two weeks before Christmas, where she was prepared for a quiet, paperwork-filled day to bid farewell to her colleagues. However, strange things began to happen to children and townspeople, and they all seemed to be instigated by an eerie presence of a woman in black, wearing a pointy hat. Was she a witch?

I did a double take as an initial reaction after finishing this book, because the story parts and the characters felt disjointed and jarring. There were moments when I wondered what the points were for some scenes. But then I realised that this book was a complete story, just not the story you’d expect in the first place. Once I realised what it was truly about, I truly got it!

The book also had amazing charcoal pencil illustrations that really elevated the story to a whole other level. It was such a thrilling experience to turn a page over and see the exact illustration that depicted the previously described horror.

If you’re looking for a classic horror story that keeps you awake at night, I’d recommend this for you.

This was an okay story, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I hoped. It was creepy and unsettling as promised, but I couldn’t connect with any of the characters, so unfortunately I struggled to immerse myself fully into the book.

However, I especially liked the building of the atmosphere. The author did a great job with the setting and I could picture myself in the situations the characters found themselves in.

This one wasn’t quite for me, but I’m sure others will love it! Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher, for a chance to read and review this book!

I was really looking forward to reading this as the description captured my attention. The horror elements were spot on, Patrick R. Delaney does an amazing job at setting up the atmosphere and it left me anticipating what was going to happen next. I agree with most other reviews, the scenes with the witch are overly creepy due to the general silence.

Unfortunately, I felt like it was written in a way that was overly descriptive and it could have been shortened to add more to the actual plot. There was this huge build up with the witch but the ending was such a let down.

This is a 2.5 rounded to a 3.

Thanks to Netgalley and Oblivion Publishing for providing me with an ARC of Witch 13 in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately, this book was a miss for me. It started super slow and one thing I do not like in horror is when an author focuses on random characters and bogs down the horror. I also did not like all of the metaphors/similes the author used. It seemed that every sentence had one and it got super annoying. I didn’t find anything about this book frightening other than the silver lining, which was the illustrations within the book. Overall, this book did not mesh well with me, however I do implore you to give it a go!

I did not like this book. Putting it simply, the writing was bad, it elongated the book and didn’t pull me in or emotionally attach me to any characters. The idea behind the book was fantastic and it was the reason I wanted so badly to read it but the biased writing and the over explanations of every detail essentially over telling EVERYTHING was too much. Way. To. Much. I found myself trying to do other things rather than read this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and Oblivion Publishing for access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

One night, a huge storm and a group of people locked in a police station. Chuck in some supernatural happenings and this book sounded like it was right up my street. Unfortunately this book never really lived up to my dreams.

The story opens with a prelude that introduces the chacater of the witch, and in quite an intense way. Cut to the main character's having a chat in a resturant and we are in our way.

My first problem with the book was I felt it never really figured out what sort of book it wanted to be, at points it felt like it was trying to be YA then it would jump into bits that felt like it was trying to be extreme horror. It made me really struggle to get invested as I couldn't get a steady rhythm with my reading. I did manage to get over this fortunately and started to really enjoy the main character Sterling, she was a tough woman who had a huge conflict of emotions through out her story and I honestly thought she was a beautifully written character. Unfortunately every single side character seemed to have a huge back story written into this novel, and for almost all of them I felt that we didn't need their back story.

Another problem the book suffers from is the ridiculous use of metaphors. In two paragraphs in the same chapter the same metaphor was used to describe buzzing. Almost everything had a metaphor attatched and I found myself skimming huge sections of the book due to this. Now I'm not opposed to a good metaphor but there can be way too many used in a book, again Witch 13 suffered from this and almost caused me to DNF.

Don't get me wrong, the story was good, a nice little reimagining and an OK ending that fell a bit flat, but the issues that surrounded the rest of it couldn't raise it any higher in the ratings. 2.5/5

Reading this was… an experience, to be sure.
Right before Christmas, small-town sheriff Sterling Marsh finds herself facing one last night on the job before she resigns. She hopes for a quiet night, but what starts with a confrontation with a disgruntled wife of a coworker (who Sterling slept with) quickly spirals into wicked madness, and a story full of lies and gore and cartoonish witches. Yes you heard that right. The main villain of the story is a witch dressed in all black with a tall, pointy hat on her head.
Now, the premise sounded very interesting to me. The gimmicky villain sounded interesting, and the cover looked appropriately creepy. I was hoping they would turn the witch gimmick into something truly terrifying, and to be fair, they did. My favourite parts of the story involved the witch getting down to her horrifying business of trying to destroy everything and everyone around her, and the prologue truly had my skin crawling.
But oh. My. God. I could not force myself to care about any of the characters. Sterling was made up to be this super badass queer woman of colour, but as soon as we meet her we find out she had an affair with her married coworker (who is her subordinate), and she spends the rest of the book pining for him. It is briefly mentioned that she had a girlfriend in the past, but I felt like the LGBTQ+ tag that this book has was a bit misleading. Of course her being queer didn’t need to be a central part of the story, but I was hoping for a bit more than her pining for her married coworker.
I also felt the story dragged on for quite a lot longer than it necessarily needed to. It could have benefitted from being a novella, or at least a hundred pages shorter. And honestly, I was close to throwing my kindle out the window for the first 85% of the book. I decided to push through however, and I was actually quite surprised by the twist in the end, even though it felt quite sudden.
Now, would I recommend this book? No, probably not. Like I said, I felt the characters were unlikeable without the author necessarily wanting them to be (we won’t talk about Chase), and I felt the story was very dull for most of the book. The writing style also wasn’t for me, there were a lot of adjectives and a lot of weird descriptions, such as blood thumping like a geyser. I can confirm that geysers do not thump.
Anyway, big thanks to Orion Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with this eArc in exchange for my honest review.

1 night in a small town, a storm, inexplicable events, a witch. Great premise, right?

When I started posting reviews on Goodreads a few years ago, I would write scathing ones for badly written books. Partly because I was upset about my wasted time, & partly because, to quote Anton Ego from Ratatouille, “negative criticism [is] fun to write and to read.”

Since then, though, I’ve been thinking a lot about the authors pouring their hearts into their works… & now writing negative reviews actually pains me. I try to be as gentle as I can, but in case of Witch 13 it’ll be a struggle.
The book has a cool concept and some brilliant ideas, but the writing is a major flaw.

Firstly, long info dumps about the side characters’ pasts – not needed and makes the story lag.

More importantly – purple prose. I feel writers really should think of the advice I’ve once read was given to a rookie journalist by his 1st boss: “If I see 1 adverb or adjective in your article, you’re fired.” Witch 13 is smothered with adverbs and adjectives; however, its worst sin is the abundance of metaphors and similes in most sentences. The language isn’t just flowery; the devices are:

- often pretentious “Cloying and hungry, [the air] draped over her face like a veil of death.”

- tonally incongruous “’This is the Drybell Sheriff’s Department, is anyone there?’
Only the steady song of the wind spoke to her.” And a bit later: “A droning started to climb; carrying through the air, rising like a tea kettle on the verge of boiling.”

Random imagery from unrelated areas = no cohesive mood;

- sometimes unintentionally funny: “Her frozen breath expelled in front of her like a dying animal. All the fight she had was gone, abandoning her like a bastard child.”

It’s a shame, as there’s a good concept behind the book, a few red herrings and 2 unexpected twists. Hence 2 stars, not 1.

Also: FANTASTIC illustrations inside by UNKNOWN - why not credited? Only the cover art is credited.
I feel there’s a huge potential to P. Delaney’s creativity, but solid advice on how to improve the writing style is needed.

So, sadly, even though I received this book before release, I couldn't get into it & I TRIED. I wanted to have my review posted before release day & I just couldn't do it.

I don't have an easy way to say this, but I did not enjoy this book.

* There were multiple POV's, which I normally love, but the POV changed so often & without warning that it was just too much for me. This may be someone else's cup of tea, but it was not mine.
* None of the characters were all that interesting or compelling. The character that was I am assuming supposed to be the main character of the story, to me, was just terrible.
* I personally was not drawn into this story, or any kind of suspense enough to care about reading further (which is why it took me so long to get through it).

That is to just name a few.

I love horror & thriller style stories but this, for me, had none of that feel for me. I know it includes elements found in the genre but it just didn't get to the level that I would have expected, though I am aware that I have a high bar in this area and that is why I left it out of the above list. So if horror is REALLY your thing, this might not be the one, but if you only like things a bit horror-esque, then this might be good for you.

Starts creepy, continues being creepy and then ends on a bit of a damp note…frustrating as until the final quarter I was really enjoying this. Beginning with a child disappearing, we find ourselves transported to a town where a witch is arrested. Creepy scenes play out, however, the characters just aren’t fleshed out enough for me to care if they meet an end. Also, there seems to be a sub-plot going on that I’m not sure is related to another book this author has written - felt a little left field with the plot choices. All in all, it’s an okay read, with the more I think about it, the more I seem to be picking holes so I’ll leave the review here. I’m interested to see where the author goes next though!

Rating: 1.5
The only thing I liked about this book was the prologue and the pictures throughout the book.