ARC Review--Weather Witch by Shannon Delany

In a vastly different and darker Philadelphia of 1844, steam power has been repressed, war threatens from deep, dark waters, and one young lady of high social standing is expecting a surprise at her seventeenth birthday party–but certainly not the one she gets!

Jordan Astraea, who has lived out all of her life in Philadelphia’s most exclusive neighborhood, is preparing to celebrate her birthday with friends, family and all the extravagance they might muster. The young man who is most often her dashing companion, Rowen Burchette, has told her a surprise awaits her and her best friend, Catrina Hollindale, wouldn’t miss this night for all the world!

But storm clouds are gathering and threatening to do far more than dampen her party plans because someone in the Astraea household has committed the greatest of social sins by Harboring a Weather Witch.

I received this e-ARC from the publishers via Netgalley for an honest review. I was in no way compensated for this review.


As you all know, I adored Shannon Delany's 13 to Life series, so I was ecstatic to get an e-ARC of Weather Witch. Although, I knew ahead of time that I was entering a new world of Shannon's, I wasn't quite prepared for this read. And as I say this, I do mean both good and bad.

Perhaps some of it comes from reading the ARC, when the final layout is not totally finished, that can cause great confusion for me at times. Especially if I get told in the final book when the narrator is changing. Here, I do not have that luxury. But for the most part it was easy to tell when there was a new narrator, but as to who the narrator was, not so much.

The book is told through varying third person points of view. There's Jordan, our heroine, Rowan, her beloved friend and maybe someone more?, Chloe the maid, John, another servant, Bran, the Maker who is someone who is in charge of the Weather Witches and getting them to acknowledge their power. His role confused me in some ways, because I wasn't sure if he was a villain or not. In the beginning, I was sure of his role, but near the end he's changing, yet not so much. Needless to say, I am not sure of his character. There were other narrators as well, but I cannot remember them all since they only had a one or two time narration.

With so many characters, there were quite a few storylines going on as well. They connected for the most part, but at times I was pretty confused. I cannot explain how or why, but I think it was a character overload that had me confused for most of this book. I had thought I would be spending the most time with Jordan and perhaps Rowen, but that wasn't the case.

At Jordan's seventeenth birthday party, she is accused of being a Weather Witch, and this is not a good thing since Weather Witches are more noticed at an early age. This basically puts Jordan in trouble as well as her parents for harboring a witch when she should've been elsewhere training or being put to work on controlling the weather. It also brings up family issues and secrets among Jordan's family, but none of that gets addressed fully or answered in this one.

Jordan knows she is not a Weather Witch and believes this will be proven during one of the tests, but she is proven wrong. For some reason she shows as being a Weather Witch. In the mean time Rowen, her best friend and maybe something more believes in her innocence when no one else will and decides at one point that he will go rescue her.

In the beginning, I didn't really care for some of the characters, like Jordan and Rowen. It's mostly due to the time period and their upbringing that had me annoyed with them. Such as moments when Jordan expected better treatment or service since she was a "lady" or when Rowen was acting a little too spineless. I will admit that they do both change and grow out of those annoying roles as challenges are thrown at them.

I did quite enjoy some of the historical characters Shannon threw in too! Chloe is a particular someone I remember learning about in a Haunted History episode many years back and there is a Fredrick that I do believe I know as well! Seeing that woven into the story was pretty cool and is something I like seeing every now and then.

There were a few surprises here and there. A few of them involving possible deaths, but I won't say more than that, and magic. I believe some of these "magic" instances or one in particular will be details we learn more about in future books. There's even a scandal, one that we didn't get to learn much on, a betrayal, one that we learn just at the end of the book, so yeah that's a cliffhanger for you! All in all, good story material.

The ending, as I said was rife with cliffhangers. Much was going on and at the tail end you are left wondering what will happen next. As a cliffhanger is wont to do. Although at the end I was still left wondering exactly what had just happened in this book. Most of it is due to this book being slightly out of my element--there's a little bit of paranormal going on, but not a lot--that I felt lost quite a bit. Plus the over changing of narrators didn't help and again, the fact this was an e-ARC and those don't always have the right layout to them when I am reading on my kindle. So I feel about half of negative feelings are chalked up on those accounts and is likely part of the cause of my confusion.

All in all, Weather Witch was an engaging read and there is still so much more to explore in this world that I look forward to reading the next one! Plus the cover is just too awesome!


Overall rating 3.5/5 stars--again, I'd say closer to 3.75/5 stars since a portion of the deduction is due the layout on my kindle


Weather Witch releases June 25, 2013