The Witches of New York

By: Ami McKay

Narrated by: Laurence Bouvard

Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

The year is 1880. Two hundred years after the trials in Salem, witches Adelaide Thom and Eleanor St Clair finally feel safe and have opened a tea shop in Manhattan, specialising in cures, palmistry and potions.

When an enchanting young woman called Beatrice joins the witches as an apprentice, she soon proves indispensable, but her new life is marred by strange occurrences. She sees things no one else can see. She hears voices no one else can hear. Objects appear out of thin air, as if gifts from the dead. Has she been touched by magic, or is she simply losing her mind?

Amidst the witches' tug-of-war over how best to nurture her gifts, Beatrice disappears - but was it by choice or by force? In the desperate search, the witches are confronted by spectres from their own pasts. In a time when women were corseted, confined and committed for merely speaking their minds, were any of them really safe?

©2016 Ami McKay (P)2017 Audible, Ltd

Nice light read

Good story, has some inconsistencies that make you go back to see if you missed something. overall good story

witches of new york

Overall this is a very slow book. The introduction to the characters and places is most of the story with most of the action and conflict only happening near the very end. lots of different directions get set up in the beginning only to lead nowhere or be completely forgotten about.
The story is unashamedly feminist, which isn't a bad thing in itself. I do however have issue with books where that is constantly being pushed on you. All the main characters are women, all the bad characters are men. The main characters are pro choice and the suffragette movement and the main bad guy is very anti that. The characters are too simple. There isn't enough gray and ambiguous for us to interpret.
There is a lot of allusion to Wicca and magic plays a strong role in the story. Again that isn't a problem in itself. It does however feel like a lot of the spells and rituals are taken directly from Wiccan practices. Often the magic doesn't feel authentic to the book , but, rather, someone's impression on what Wicca should be.
The performance also really irritated me. The actor uses very high pitched voices for female characters which grates on the ear. Other times it sounds rather robotic.
Overall not my favourite book or performance but it wasn't bad by any means.

Narrator sounds like a robot

This was intolerably badly read. The narrator sounds so robotic. Ruined what is a fantastic book.