Sequel/2nd in series. Stands alone reasonably well, although some of the subtleties of the world in which it is set seem to be lost if you don’t know the back story. The reader is mostly filled in sensitively by the author, although a few plot devices seem a little forced in their attempts to impart knowledge of the previous book.

The characters are well drawn, and on the whole likeable and realistic. They certainly aren’t perfect or too stereotyped or clichéd. There was a full complement of characters to check the diversity boxes though, which again felt a little forced at times trying to make it clear to all readers that they were for example Asian or non-binary.

The plot is relatively slow, as much builds around the characters emotions, and their histories. However the conclusion seemed so quick it was over before it started… I felt that at times the conclusion was rushed to the detriment of the reader who is unfamiliar with the 1st in this series, and I actually had to read the last 8% twice.

Overall, I know a teenage me would have loved this, and I’d have battled between which character I wanted to be or most identified with. I am sure there are modern teen girls who will feel the same way.

I was so excited for this second book after loving the first one in 2021. However unfortunately due to the format of the ebook that was provided, I could only read it on my phone, which prevented me from fully enjoying the book because of my visual impairment. What I could manage to read, I did enjoy, and I will be buying a finished copy of the book when it is released.

Good God(s) I loved this book so much!
My head's still spinning after a one-day binge read and I have book grief from the fact I'm no longer reading it - although I think a reread of this and All Our Hidden Gifts might be on the cards soon (pun totally intended).

Without giving too much away, The Gifts That Bind Us picks up a few months after the end of AOHG, "the summer that Roe learned to drive and that I learned to read minds' (which, incidentally, might be a contender for my favourite opening line ever). Maeve and her little gang have been enjoying a literally magical summer, getting to grips with their powers and trying to ignore the change that will inevitably come once school starts back. But start nack it does and, as the girls battle with final year exam stress and their awkward new friendship dynamic, Roe tries to balance first of college with the increasing pressures of minor rock-stardom.

Oh, and as if that's not enough, the Children of Brigid are back, spreading their own toxic brand of fundamentalist religious hatred and intolerance even further and closer to home than ever. All in all, it's a lot for our beloved gang of wonderful weirdos to deal with.

I'm completely in awe of Caroline O’Donoghue's ability craft compelling, exciting stories that explore real world issues - like gender identity, transphobia, school stress, self-harm, slut shaming, consent, assault and manipulation - in a way which never feels overwhelming for the reader. The story gets dark, in places, but the focus on love, friendship and compassion - along with a fantastic amount Buffy-level humour from our quippy, witchy quartet - serve to balance the hatred. And the emphasis on kindness, even towards characters it could be argued deserved the stickiest of endings, remind the reader that sometimes we can be the ones to bring hope to what seems like a hopeless situation.

This book was one of my most anticipated reads of 2022, and somehow managed to exceed every expectation I had! An absolute triumph of a sequel,

I absolutely loved this sequel to All Our Hidden Gifts. I loved seeing how Maeve was getting on. I loved seeing how things were after the events of book one with the Housekeeper and I was intrigued to see where Caroline would take their story next. This was much darker than the first book and I didn't want to put it down.

ugh I loved this so much! the ending is genuinely scary! just keeps getting better!

out Feb 3rd - if you haven't read All Our Hidden Gifts yet, you have time!

I just bloody love these characters!

*spoilers ahead*

We’re back in Kilbeg, the Housekeeper is gone and Lily is back but nothing is better. Everyone is acting weird, and no-one but the main gang seems to realise.

I love the flawed and nuanced relationships the main characters have with one another, although I did really miss Roe! The mix of humour and heartfelt moments is really well balanced, I’ll never get over the line “Maeve’s psychic again… She gone and shagged herself psychic”.

The exploration of Roe’s gender over both the first book and this one is incredible, it’s one of my favourite parts of the series and hearing them explain how they feel like they are bad at being trans because they don’t have the patience to explain themselves to every stranger they meet hit me hard.

Manon was a great edition to the gang, and I found it interesting to see Aaron turn on COB. I did find some of the ‘reveals’ a little obvious, but I thoroughly enjoyed it regardless. Now, to survive the long wait for book 3 after the hint of what is to come!

Thank you to Walker Books and Netgalley for providing a review copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Gifts That Bind Us by Caroline O’Donoghue is an epic continuation of All Our Hidden Gifts. In this instalment we’re following Maeve and her friends as they try to accept what just went down and they’re new powers, whilst tackling the expectations of their after school plans. It’s a lot for a group of young witches to take on.

This sequel explored so many different topics that surface for young teens - it’s incredibly relatable. New relationships, tumultuous friendships, fluctuating identity, having to save the world….. The way Caroline writes makes for such a fun, fast read and allows for so many important conversations on gender, sexuality, race, consent and so much more. I can’t even begin to explain how gracefully she melds all of these tough topics together with this ever evolving plot line. There were a couple of conversations between Maeve and Rue that had me stopping and needing a breath because I couldn’t believe we were having such a normal yet raw conversation about exploring your queer identity, pronouns and acceptance. And I haven’t even begun talking about the amount of real world magic! It’s so lovely to see such a genuine representation of witchcraft, divination and spell work - thank you Caroline.

I would like to let you know that if you’re thinking of picking up this sequel, please be aware that it contains scenes discussing self-harm, sexual assault, transphobia, manipulation and more potentially difficult topics that I’m definitely forgetting.

The Gifts That Bind Us is published February 3rd! Please don’t miss out on this drama filled, magical series! I can’t believe I have to wait a whole year for book 3 because that ending revelation has me wanting more!

Brilliant sequel to All Our Hidden Gifts. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the chance to read a digital arc in exchange for my feedback.

I really enjoyed this book, so im going to give it 4/5 stars. it was a really good sequel, and i really enjoyed the plot and characters, and the direction the book went in.

I really enjoyed All Our Hidden Gifts and knew I had to have the sequel in my life, especially after O’Donoghue left us with that ending. The Gifts That Bind Us feels like the sleeker older sibling of the first book, with more darkness and exploration of the coming of age narrative.

This continuation is incredibly enjoyable.Everything I loved about the first book was just built upon and made even stronger. A huge draw of All Our Hidden Gifts for me was the dynamics between the characters. Here, they become even more developed and three-dimensional. They all have their own issues to deal with and I liked how dysfunctional and unlikable they could be at times. Their messiness and human fallibility made them all the more relatable and realistic teenagers.

This also allows room for growth and development of both them and their powers. I loved O’Donoghue’s enrichment of both the magic system and wider mythology associated with the powers. These are genuinely unique and fascinating, only getting richer and more complex.They’ve faced unspeakable horrors, often monstrously human. I appreciated how much the narrative allows them to deal with their experiences, while also exploring coming of age and going off to further paths. The discussion around anxieties about friendship and the future was so heartfelt. I also really enjoy the way O’Donoghue pulls on contemporary political strands to emphasise the very real dangers embedded within the narrative and within our wider society.

All of this builds to an incredibly dramatic and suspenseful ending, where the stakes have been seriously raised. This leaves me desperately needing to know what happens to our beloved characters next.

The Gifts That Binds Us is a worthy sequel to an underrated and unique YA series that I hope more people fall in love with.

There's nothing I love more than a dark YA, with a gorgeous cover, and The Gifts that Bind is DEFINITELY delivered!
The sequel sets off quite close to the end of our first novel, and we're faced with our core crew coming into their new powers. But the forces that threaten them have not taken a break, and together they have to fight both dangers from outside and within.
I absolutely adored the first book in this series, and the second one was, without a doubt, even better! I loved the way that O'Donaghue played with the friendship dynamic, and I found the tension between Maeve and Roe incredibly compelling! High school friendships are hard enough when you don't have magical forces trying to tear you apart.
Maeve had some dark moments in this novel, but it never felt like a stretch of the imagination. I found myself surprised at every turn, and despite usually quite wise to plot-twists and secret identities, I found myself surprised there as well.
This narrative is expertly crafted, it's obvious that the author has a very good grasp on the world created within this story, and that it is exceptionally managed to leave readers with a incredibly visual and compelling book! I would give it six stars if I could, and I cannot wait for the next one!

All Our Hidden Gifts was one of my favourite books of 2021 bar none, so I was over the moon to get an ARC of the sequel. Thankfully, it’s released in February so the wider world doesn’t have long to wait before we get back to Kilbeg. The Gifts that Bind Us picks up some months after its predecessor left off – the gang have spent the summer practicing and honing their magical skills, and trying not to think about the enormity of their actions prior. Maeve, our main character, is still equal parts vulnerable and fierce – she really is a teen protagonist for the ages. She is feeling lost and alone for much of this novel, and O’’Donoghue does a stellar job of making her feelings intensely relatable, regardless of whether you’re 16 or 28, magical or not.
The magical gang - aka My Tiny Witch Babies - have grown more nuanced and mature since the beginning of the series, and there’s a definite increase in introspection in this novel. O’Donoghue does a stellar job of blending teenage drama and magical drama throughout the novel, giving almost equal weight to the two. Issues of gender, sexuality, mental health and loneliness are sensitively handled while never dragging down the main, magical plot. It is decidedly up for creating conflict between its characters, too, never keeping the gang static in a way that adds to the tension of the main plot. No one is behaving like they would on Buffy! Everyone is confused and scared and lashing out! It’s one of the most wildly realistic fantasy books I’ve ever read in this sense, and all the better for it. New characters sing - Manon spin-off series WHEN! - and old ones are given more complexity, filled out beyond basic stereotypes. The villains - an far-right religious group intent on taking power away from the citizens of Kilbeg - are given more nuance and complexity, too, while still effectively remaining a hate group.
The plot is satisfying as hell, too, building on the events of the first novel while expanding the world and our gang’s knowledge of it. I’m a sucker for magical goings-on set in the real world, and so the setting of Kilbeg, with its pub selling scampi fries and its old-fashioned café, is like absolute catnip to me.
Gripping, refreshing and magical, you’d be hard-pushed to find better magical YA fiction out there at the moment, and I know I am going to sob my way through book 3 whenever I get my hands on it.

I was very excited to get an ARC of The Gifts That Bind Us as I enjoyed its prequel All Our Hidden Gifts so much. It begins in the summer after the events of its prequel with Maeve, Roe, Lily and Fiona trying to come to terms with what has happened, how they have changed and how they will move on. This has implications and creates tension in Maeve and Roe’s relationship and in the friendship between Maeve, Lily and Fiona. The first third of the book focuses on the tensions in these relationships and Maeve’s insecurities and feelings of loneliness. Whilst O’Donoghue perfectly observes the feelings of being in your teens in a small town that feels like your world whilst adulthood and massive change beckons, I struggled to get properly engrossed in this part of the story and if I had been reading this as a new reader to the series I may have given up at this point. By the second third, however, the action ramps up as it becomes clear that right wing religious group The Children of Brigid have not gone away and has Kilbeg in its sights. Maeve and her friends have to harness their gifts and work together to negate the threat to Kilbeg and at this point I raced through the compelling story. Thank you to Netgalley for an honest review in return for an ARC of The Gifts That Bind Us.

I will admit to being a little sceptical about whether All Our Hidden Gifts really needed a sequel but The Gifts That Bind Us definitely sold me on it. There weren’t that many loose ends from the first book, I thought, but I really liked how this one took those and ran with them.

In general, I think it was a more introspective book than the first, less about doing something and more about the feelings that everything in book one had dredged up. Yes, they still had to fight bad guys, but that felt less of a focus for the most part. And that was great, to me. Books that look at consequences of saving x, y and z are the most interesting of books, and that was the case here.

On top of this, I really enjoy books that take the bad guy from a first book and force them to work together with the good guy, because there’s an even worse guy as the villain of the book. And they don’t become friends or anything, they continue sniping at one another, but they have to work together. That’s probably a clumsy way of explaining it, I guess, but what I like most is that it forces the good guy to confront morality not being black and white, and it forces the bad guy to think about their world view. It’s likely pretty obvious which characters I’m talking about here, but, given the first book, this was a kind of unexpected turn of events and one that I really liked. (Also, to note, none of this means the bad guy’s transgressions get ignored, which was great too.)

The focus of this book really was the friendship between Maeve, Fiona, and Lily (less so Roe, who spent a lot of the book at university and/or forgetting). That friendship was often thorny, namely between Maeve and Lily, but I loved the directions it took and the understandings that the characters came to with one another. That was another refreshing aspect of the book.

All of this, then, adds up to a sequel that I loved and a third book that I’m now highly anticipating. From thinking that this best worked as a standalone, you’ve sold me Caroline O’Donoghue. I need it all now.

I loved this book. I thought I would, because "All our Hidden Gifts" was been *chefs kiss* but this follow up was everything I wanted and more. Brilliant characters, moving stories, genuine sense of dread and fear for these people.

Your friendly reminder to preorder The Gifts That Bind Us by Caroline O'Donoghue asap. Out 3rd February 2022, it is the exhilarating, wonderful sequel to the fantastic All Our Hidden Gifts.. I feel like I can't get too into the plot of the sequel without ruining the ending of the first book, but it follows Maeve as she learns more about her new power and herself, and the rising danger in her town is so brilliantly mirrored by more relatable anxieties about friendship groups, first love and Life after the Leaving Cert (tm).

This was the only book I could read while in quarantine last month; O'Donoghue's writing is always urgent and gripping, but far from being a page turner that lacks substance, there are layers of character and story and ideas through her work that are perfectly balanced with it also being a fun and at times heartwarming read. I love "the best friends" gang so much, and there's big Buffy energy off both this and another excellent recent release in Irish witchy YA, Precious Catastrophe by Deirdre Sullivan, and I love that! I also can't forget to note how skillfully O'Donoghue raises awareness about privilege and represents different people across genders, ethnicities and sexualities, while never being heavy handed. More books in this series immediately, please!

Thanks to Netgalley and publishers for this eARC

When I read the synopsis for this The gifts That Bind Us I was immediately roped in.
It seemed like a novel that crossed between Charmed and The Craft. Plus witchy novels are a must read for me.
However I didn't realise it was a sequel when I first requested to read it and to be honest, I felt a bit lost without the background of the first book - this is in no way the Authors fault, I should have done my research. That said it now makes me want to go back and read the first and re read this book again.

I thought how Caroline O'Donoghue writes teenage characters and coming of age plots was great. Her writing of teens is so tangible and real, they're not always likeable, which to me makes them more realistic feeling.
Her writing gave all the characters their own depth and the subplot tied in with the main plot which linked all the characters well.

As I said previously this is a sequel and the magic is explored more within this novel along with the characters.
I did enjoy this read and I would definitely recommend.

I loved The Gifts That Bind Us by Caroline O’Donoghue. This is the second book in her tarot-inspired contemporary fantasy series, and I think it’s one of the most thoughtful, mature YA fantasies out there. It is more focused on the implications of events, on mental trauma and small-scale relationships and impacts rather than sweeping plots and fast-paced adventures, which is a welcome change and makes this stand out in the market. I think I liked this one even more than the first book as it delved deeper into trauma and consequences, and really dared to lean into slower pacing – but no less tense story-telling. The gang from the first book is back here, Maeve, Roe, Fiona and Lily, but we meet a host of new characters too, both positive and negative, all of them nuanced and complex. And it’s lovely to get books set in small-town Ireland rather than US or UK as is far more common. A wonderful YA series that I’d highly recommend!

Unfortunately, I just can't explain how bored I was by this book. I'm sad because I gave the first book 4.5 stars back in February and I had similar expectations for the sequel. After all the drama of the Housekeeper and the witchy rituals and the creepiness of the Children of Brigid, I expected elevation of all those themes. I didn't expect the second book to be all about falling out with your friends and people banging on about chastity. At just over halfway through, you get the first scene about wicca and charms/spells, which is far too late. I'm so sad to have disliked this one!

Content warnings: self-harm, transphobia, homophobia, racism (potentially more I may have missed, please look them up)

Thank you to Netgalley, Caroline O'Donoghue and Walker Books for providing me with an e-copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

I was so excited to have the chance to read The Giffts That Bind Us after having read All Our Hidden Gifts earlier this year and loving it.

We jump straight into the action again as we follow Maeve, Lily, Fiona and Roe navigate teenage life in the small Irish town of Kilbeg and the sinister and supernatural occurances that directly affect them. We are introduced to new characters and discover more about the origins of their powers.

I loved being back in this world, the friendship group feels authentic and believable and I can't wait to read the next installment!

Thanks to Netgalley and Walker Books for the chance to read The Gifts That Bind Us.