*DNF'd*

I was so intrigued by the blurb of this book but sadly in the end it was not for me.

I found myself not connecting or liking the characters at all. And when I first put the book down I struggled to pick it up again. I thought the pacing was slow and even though I understand this could have been to further build suspense and tension, it made it so hard to get immersed in the story.

Overall I do believe others will enjoy this book but it was unfortunate that I was not one of those people.

Regardless, I am hugely grateful to the publishers of this book for providing me with an eArc.

I experienced several different emotions as I read this tale. First, I was overjoyed at finding a witch who actually managed to be a bit scary. On the other hand, I didn’t like the explanation of where she was from. The last couple of chapters had unexpectedly vivid descriptions of gore. Yet the very end of the story didn’t completely work for me.

Despite my being split about this work, it was definitely creative. Therefore, I’ve given it four stars.

Sheriff Sterling March is not doing so great. Her life is a mess, and she's to blame. Wanting nothing more than to spend a night with friends (once the paperwork is done), instead she gets a witch.

Straight from a fairy tale, this witch. Tall, pointy hat, black flowing clothes, this person just screams "I need you to know that I am a witch!"

Fortunately for March, witches aren't real.

Unfortunately for March...yes they are. And this one is about to make her, and her little town, into believers.

“13 Witches”

They walked together,
old as time,
they’ll take your soul,
but don’t take mine.

Skin like milk,
hair like ash,
they’ll kill anyone,
who crosses their path.

Hats full of stitches,
make your wishes,
because coming for you,
are the thirteen witches.
— Unknown

I was pleasantly surprised by the illustrations - I wasn't expecting them, but the first appeared in the prologue. They are, all of them, beautiful (even the disturbing ones); images of charcoal and grey, clouded and swirling, with the main image picked out of the smoky background. Kudos to the artist, they are magnificent.

To our protagonist, then. Marsh is an odd character, and it takes a while to warm to her. Right from the start there are very clearly a number of things wrong: sleep trouble, family estrangement, an unhealthy tendency to push herself, the need to run and run and run some more.

There's also an early comment about her old life, and an ex-girlfriend (woo). But it seems like her running habit isn't just on a treadmill.

A few lines later...and yeah, the running thing is just what she does.

This is a woman who is full of cracks, and one more might be all it takes for the whole person to shatter into pieces.

So we're off to a wonderful start. I can't wait to see what a (presumably) evil witch is going to do to this crumbling wreck of a woman!

Anyway, it doesn't take long to get stuck in to the scary stuff, always good to start how you mean to go on, and it's a pretty decent start, for sure.

(Hey also, she's bi, double woo!)

And we have more than just a mixed-race main character, there's a whole bunch of not white people, just existing in the world and doing their thing. I always love to see that!

The cast of characters (whose pov we occasionally see through, usually when things are happening in parallel that Marsh doesn't know about), are quite the bunch. Not all of them are particularly likeable (I’m thinking of one in particular that never grew on me). They’re an oddball group if ever there was one, but they’re great to be around. Even as things fall apart, they try to figure out the best thing they can do, and put in every effort to do it.

Max's age caused me some issues. He's meant to be 7 years old. He can solve a rubik's cube, but doesn't know what a ruler is. He acts at various times like he’s anything between 5 and 12 years old. Sure, kids have weird depths of maturity that adults don’t see a lot of the time, and they don’t grow into it all at once, but it’s more like his mental and emotional age just being whipped up and down to suit what’s happening, rather than him genuinely reacting. I might be being overly picky on this point though!

There seems to be a large plothole in the overarching "we're trapped in this town" thing. There’s talk of the bridge being blocked–that’s fine. But nothing about another main way in or out, nor are the fire trails mentioned, that I recall, until the emergency services come racing up them at the end.

The evil witch? She’s very creepy. Store mannequin creepy. She can apparently teleport at will, make people see things, and a bunch more useful stuff, and that’s before she gets her full power. At that point, there is much gruesome carnage! Almost too much, in a way, it gets a bit silly as the author tries to come up with new things for the witch to do, but it is entertaining.

So keep away if you’re not great at dealing with gruesome things.

But, if you like plots that don't give away all the answers, video game style execution with magic, and getting into the head of a really fucked up but always trying protagonist, pick it up and read!

*This ARC was given to me by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

Overall rating: 3.5 rounded down to a 3

Content/Trigger Warning: domestic violence, suicide, gore, adultery, loneliness, emetophobia

Brief Summary: It is Sheriff Sterling Marsh last day as an officer in Drybell, Connecticut, and is resigning after a string of bad decisions leaves her life in shambles. Two weeks before Christmas and expecting a long night of paperwork, she’s surprised when an unnerving stranger appears in the form of a witch, complete with pointy hat and long black dress. But things aren't exactly as they seem. (And that's all you really need to know when going into this book tbh)

My thoughts: Patrick Delaney definitely does a greta job at setting up a creepy atmosphere. I was hooked from the first pages. Very unsettling vibes right from the start. But then for me it kinda trailed off during the middle point. I felt very bored and tired when I got to the middle and was missing some type of action to happen. It picked back up at the end, but this middle section was just a little too long and empty for my tastes.

The cast of characters was one of my favorite parts of the book. I enjoyed how all of them were flawed in some way and had their own issues instead of there just being that one righteous person that horror novels usually seem to have. I just wish that the ending would have tied up their stories a little neater.

Now, the Witch was a pretty fantastic character. Dark, menacing, and totally what you need if you're looking for a little bit of horror to spice up your reading. I enjoy that although she is described in such a stereotypical 'witchy' way, she doesn't act like one. She is mostly mobile for the scenes she is in, which I think makes her more mysterious and terrifying. There's something really off-putting about a witch standing in the corner and not doing anything rather than attacking constantly. I just wish that there was a little more done with her. I was wanting more with her character every time I saw her in the book. Like I was sitting on the edge of my seat waiting to see what she would do when she actually moved.

Overall, I would recommend this to anyone who is just getting into the horror genre and doesn't want to be too scared by anything. I could see many people curling up with this book come October when people are really itching for creepy vibes.

Witch 13 took me a second to get into, but once I did I found it creepy and very satisfying to read! I recommend saving it for a rainy day with lots of thunder.

Witch 13 had a great premise but ultimately did not deliver for me. It was the kind of book where I reached the end and wondered, "what just happened? what did I read all this for?". To start, the characters were largely unlikeable and impossible to relate to, making extremely questionable decisions during the course. There was really no character growth for anyone, especially Sterling and Chase. There was also little explanation as to why the events of the book happened in the first place. At the end, we get a quick snapshot from the prisoner Bill who had been ignored for the majority of the book, but even this didn't make much sense. It seemed like a mix of Candyland and the blind witch from Hansel and Gretal origin story. Lastly, no explanation/reasoning for why Sterling was apparently one of the witches and was chosen. This wasn't even mentioned until the end of the story, after the witch had pretty much murdered everybody. Overall, I liked the idea of a witch causing mayhem inside a police station, but the lackluster ending and the bad characters overshadowed it.

I was really excited by this book, the description and the cover made me eager to read it. Overall, this is a suspenseful and creepy story and I really liked the fairy-tale elements, particularly the descriptions of the witch. The idea that she smells like cakes and sweets is genius, and gave me Hansel and Gretel vibes. I also loved the chapter which took place in a supermarket, it really reminded me of old school horror films and I was on the edge of my seat, waiting to see what would happen next.

Unfortunately for me, I didn't really gel with any of the characters and found them to be quite unlikeable. Also, the story was a little bit slow-paced and overly descriptive in places which prevented me from really engaging with the plot.

I think this book has great potential and will definitely give you a scare!

Patrick Delaney's novel is an ode to spooky, winter horror novels. From the moment I read about Madelyn's encounter with the witch to her eerie choice of venturing towards the river I was creeped out. I loved that Delaney gave us a typical description of a witch from the dark clothes to the pointy hat. This book had elements of a Brother's Grimm story with the whimsical descriptions and fabulous illustrations.

My greatest suggestion would be that I wish the editor had gone through the book and removed more. At times the book was saturated with description after description of plot that didn't need so much elaboration. I felt it was long at times and began to skim (which ISN'T good).

I definitely did not enjoy reading this book.
The characters and their actions just did not seem right, felt really biased especially when you consider their age and experience.
I pulled through and read till the end hoping for a better ending, but it was still disappointing.

Also, *spoiler* max is a kid who does not deserve the trauma.

3.5 stars.
A dark horror story about a witch. I don't even know where to begin. It was creepy and intriguing. I had to know what was going on. There were some frightening scenes, and the last bit of the book was pretty gory. The storyline held my interest. I'd love for this to end up a series. I would definitely read more.
Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

I really liked the premise of this book and wanted to like it but the writing style just wasn’t for me and I couldn’t really get into the characters.

I was so excited to get this book approved because I have loved what I have read by Patrick Delaney in the past. I know we have an ARC and that there may very well be changes in the book by the time it comes out, but I don’t know if it will be enough.

I was captured right away. An actual witch. Children in danger from said witch. It was basically a fairy tale brought into the present. The atmosphere and spookiness I expect from Patrick Delaney was definitely there. Unfortunately, it just didn’t come together for me. When there is expectation and a good start you often feel even more let down than if you came into the book with nothing. I think that’s why I rounded up to 3 stars. I don’t think the book was bad. It just didn’t live up to it’s potential.

The problems can be partially fixed. There is a lot of repetition here. I started to wonder if I was imagining it. It got to the point in which I started skimming when the same thing was said over and over. A little editing and that is fixed. There is also too much backstory. Just too much that doesn’t add anything to the story or my understanding of the characters and their actions.

The biggest issue for me was that the main character didn’t seem fully thought out. She was a mess with little to make us care for her. She was fairly weak and made so many decisions based on emotion. She was a throwback in a really bad way to the overly emotional female trope. I just didn’t like her.

The witch was the most interesting character, so I wanted to get more about her and her motives in the end than we got. I would have loved more about her and less about the main character, her parents, her complete inability to take control of herself…

Stirling is sheriff of a small town, but if she has her way it won’t be for very much longer. It should be her last night, and she was anticipating a quiet one. But things do not turn out the way she had planned. She did not expect to walk into the wife of the man she’d been seeing. She didn’t expect the woman to strike her in the middle of the local diner. She didn’t blame her, but she could have done without the encounter. Worst of all, worst of everything, was that she didn’t expect to go out on a call and have the same woman throw herself to her death a few hours later.

Stirling encounters a woman at the scene of the death. She is dressed in all black and wears what appears, jaw-droppingly, to be the pointy hat of a witch from a fairy-tale. But as people start to die across the town Stirling has sworn to protect, she realises that this is no woman in a cheap Halloween costume, and wherever she came from it was certainly no fairy-tale.

Patrick Delaney’s Witch 13 is thick with atmosphere right from the opening page. The air around the town of Drybell nigh on crackles with the energy of the storm that surrounds it. The occupants become isolated, and the quiet town becomes little more than a ghost town. A few of its occupants are attending a surprise leaving party for Sterling, and the vast majority of the book is set at this location, which happens to be the small local police station.

The beginning of the book uses many of the same story points as the comic book 30 Days of Night, or the Stephen King TV miniseries Storm of the Century, not to mention a plethora of horror movies from the early 80’s. We have a town isolated by poor weather, a mysterious stranger that languishes in a local jail cell, and the local police officer who finds themselves tied up in it all. So while it might not be an original start, it is a well drawn one. The dimly lit streets are clear in the reader’s mind, as are the pockets of people that populate the town. The author effectively minimises the town into just a dozen people who occupy one location, and this never seems forced. So while my comparison to other stories might seem negative, I think it’s anything but. Patrick Delaney manages to tell an oft told tale with enough originality to keep it fresh for the reader.

The characters are engaging, though often not very likeable, and the world around them is nicely realised. The layout of the town, though not explicitly explained, feels realistic, and this lends the whole story a kind of geographic solidity.

About midway through the book becomes a little slow, my engagement waning, but this does not last long, and some of Stirling’s personal entanglements seemed somewhat beside the point. I’d extend this to the LGBT tag the book has, the moment this refers to is brief and completely unnecessary to the plot. Cynically I can’t help but think this scene was only included to allow the author to slap an LGBT-friendly tag on the work.

For me the worst part of the book was the inclusion of the mysterious stranger who spends most of the book in the jail cell, only to be revealed at the book’s conclusion. It appears he ends up knowing everything our nero needs to know, as well as a great deal the audience has been wondering about. There seems to be no real reason for him having this knowledge, and once he deposits the knowledge on our hero he promptly disappears, making it pretty clear this was the only reason he was there. While I can understand that the author needed some explanation for the incidents in the book, the scenes with this character felt just like information dumps, and though there are efforts to humanise him and give him character it never felt particularly effective to me.

Though it did not completely ruin it, ultimately this weakened the book’s conclusion for me. It would have been preferable for Stirling to discover this information through her own investigative skills, she is a sheriff after all, rather than have a man turn up to lead her through her understanding of the situation.

Patrick Delaney’s Witch 13 is a fun read, which I did enjoy, but it’s not the great read it could have been. The author tells an engaging tale, and there are many good things about the book that I hope you’ll discover when you read it yourself, but when the last page is turned it seems that Delaney is ham-strung by his own ideas. A story about a witch straight out of a fairy tale terrorising a modern American town sounds like a great idea, and it is one, but it seems that drawing such a tale to a satisfying and believable conclusion was just a little beyond the author’s reach, at least it was for this reader.

When all is said and done, I think you should definitely consider reading Witch 13 for yourself if the idea intrigues you. In spite of my reservations I did find it an engaging read with heaps of atmosphere and a more than memorable villain.

Thank you for this arc! I truly enjoyed this story. I have chills and my hair stood up multiple times and the eerie night in the dark town was written well. This horror was fun to follow because it gave all the feels horror readers love! I do think it was a little predictable though.

An Atmospheric and Unsettling Story of Horror!

Two weeks before Christmas and It's Sheriff Sterling Marsh's last day on her job and she's hoping for a quiet last twenty-four hours of work. This is Drybell, Connecticut a small island town with only a bridge leading one way in or out of town and now there has been a huge crash on the bridge involving a truck and a huge semi-tractor trailer. Next there is a call about a young boy gone missing from the grocery market with his mother and now Sterling can't reach her deputy who was handling the crash. A storm has been brewing all day and it may be the most violent weather Drybell has ever seen but no-one is aware of this yet while the lights are flickering, phones are losing connections but they've been through bad storms before and always survived just fine. When a frantic phone call comes in from the city hall Sterling rushes over and finds the building empty yet feels the hairs on her neck standing up and knows something is very wrong and then she comes upon a scene so in unbelievable that she thinks she's still asleep at home having a horrific bad dream that she can't awake from. Shortly after, she finds a woman, just standing quietly facing a wall, still like a statue and she is dressed strangely like a witch, hat and all. This woman won't respond to any of Sterling's commands so she handcuffs the witch-like looking woman and brings her back to the station. Sterling feels nervous and creeped out by the woman and she doesn't know why since Sterling herself is one fearless and strong woman a formidable match for any man. This crazy night has only just begun and the wicked electical storm that keeps brewing will soon turn Into the worst living nightmare for all who have the misfortune to live in the small town of Drybell.

This was a fantastic horror book written by Patrick Delaney. The creepy and atmospheric storytelling of this nightmarish stormy night in Drybell is guaranteed to to give goosebumps while looking over your shoulder and wondering if you're really hearing whispers or is it just the wind outside your windows. I can't imagine reading this book with the lights off yet I recommend keeping them off to achieve the complete eerie effect that will really leave you feeling spooked. I haven't read such a disturbingly creepy and sinister story since "Road of Bones" by Christopher Golden which I loved and will stay with me for a long time as this frightening book will also be remembered for such intriguing, dark storytelling and wonderful, believable characters. As anyone can see who reads this review, I absolutely loved this unique horror book that brought out the best feelings that a horror story should bring to life, which was a sense of impending dread or doom including an unconscious fear and nervousness while I was reading this nerve shattering story.

"Witch 13" has brought back how we were conditioned as children to think about witches (maybe worse) instead of the light and airy magical witches that can be found everywhere. I certainly haven't come across such a chill inducing witch story in a long time, maybe ever for myself but this book is what Great Horror is meant to be. A story to make you feel creepy and find yourself listening for noises or seeing shadow movement out of the corner of your eye. That is what this book did for me and I'm sure it will do the same for the majority of horror fans out there!

I want to thank the author Patrick Delaney, the publisher "Oblivion Publishing" and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this terrific book and any thoughts or opinions expressed are unbiased and mine alone!

I highly recommend this very creative book and have given a rating of 5 SPINE-TINGLING AND UNSETTLING 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 STARS!!

Witch 13 by Patrick Delaney is a trope that many horror fans find to be comforting. What… Horror and Comforting in the same sentence?! Yes, that’s why so many people love horror because you can get your adrenaline pumping, but you know that good will triumph in the end… or at least one person will survive.

Witch 13 is the classic evil witch tale, this time she takes over a whole town on Christmas Eve… if you believe, the night that Jesus was born, so what a wonderful time of the year to introduce an ancient evil that has been around since at least when the Great Pyramid was being built.

Where Delaney shines is in his nightmare scenes where the witch is tempting people with their own desires all while the smell of chocolate and other sweets is wafting in the air. Delaney is able to incorporate lots of horror tropes and give his own unique spin to them.

Where he lost me was in the character development. The reader was thrown into the chaos, as it often happens in horror books and movies, and usually by the end the reader/watcher has some empathy or sympathy for some of the characters. Besides the boy, I really didn’t care if the rest lived. While the reader gets information as to why the main characters are so troubled, it felt more like the author dropped some typical reasons into a hat and picked a couple out. The characters were just a bit too one dimensional for me.

If you’re looking for some interesting material for your next nightmare, Witch 13 may be perfect for you. But if you’re looking for a story that is filled with well developed characters, you may want to look elsewhere.

The author has an unusual twist to a standard witch story & it works well.
It is set in a small town in rural Connecticut on a stormy night, when power is out, communications are down and there is no way to contact the outside world. Typical for the genre, yet very believable! The story is dark, creepy, atmospheric and quite unnerving. The illustrations are well thought out, and may make the reader pause for a moment to consider if this is a children’s story or the dark, disturbing tale they are experiencing!
It's not really my thing, but if you like horror stories and/or witches I think you would enjoy this. (though you might not want to read it in a rural area on a stormy night!).

I loved the creepy atmosphere created and my spine tingled more than once or twice. I also really loved the character development and backstories in this book. If a book can do these things well then that’s an automatic gold star right there. However, it is all standard horror stuff here and some uniqueness would have elevated it more, and the ending is not so great. But sometimes genericism is enough, and it indeed was for me.

Thank you for this opportunity. Readerly gist under invisiblemonster is mine.

Strange things and mysterious deaths keep happening, and all signs point to the witch lurking about town. Things begin getting even worse after Sterling arrests the woman dressed in a Halloween costume at Christmas time and brings her to the station. Who is she? And why is she here?

I can honestly say that from start to finish, I could not predict a single thing that was going to happen in this book. It reminds me a lot of Stephen King’s writing style, where the book starts with something spooky happening that ultimately has some kind of supernatural and strange explanation. This book is creepy and weird and I like it a lot.

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for the digital ARC, it has not affected my honest review.

I'm not 100% sure what I think of Witch 13. The premise is strong and the horror is excellent, especially as the story grows but the characters never reached their full potential. I found the lead Sterling Marsh to be the most interesting but struggled to connect to her as the story continued and I was confused by the ending. However, this was a fun and quick read with a terrifying witch character.