Book Spotlight: Wishtress by Nadine Brandes

Welcome to book spotlight where instead of giving you another book review, I’m just going to talk about books I’ve read recently that I enjoyed. Prepare yourself for the fangirl gushing.

Sometimes you read a book and even though it’s not your favorite story ever or it doesn’t capture you as much as other stories have, you can feel the heart of the author at play and it makes the story better. This is how I feel when it comes to Wishtress by Nadine Brandes.

Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed reading Wishtress. There are a lot of elements within this book that I loved. The magic of Talents and Banes, the Dutch and German inspired world-building, the characters, the journey. I can feel the heart of Nadine within the pages of this story, and I love the messages and themes about healing and faith woven into Myrth’s story. I love how empowering and heartfelt this book is.

I enjoyed so many aspects of it and there were moments when I couldn’t handle continuing because it was so intense and I was so worried about what might happen. (I totally don’t trust Nadine not to kill off main characters.) Reading this book made me want to write fantasy again. 

But the ending of Wisthress didn’t work for me. The last 25% seemed to drag out unnecessarily and didn’t go in the direction I expected. And that’s okay. No book is perfect. No book can completely capture every reader. Just because I had an issue with the ending doesn’t mean that someone else won’t love it completely.

I don’t like writing negative reviews, even if the “negative” aspect is only a small part of a mostly positive review. I want my blog to be a space that uplifts and empowers, that brings encouragement and good vibes. So publishing a post about a book I enjoyed but didn’t completely love is hard. But I don’t want to not post about Nadine’s story because there is so much good about it when I look beyond the ending.

~Thank you to the publisher for providing an early digital copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.~

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