I read an eARC of this book so thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley.

This book was such good fun. It’s completely over the top and but it’s just so entertaining.

This is one for fans of National Treasure, The Da Vinci Code and Relic Hunter. We have a completely awesome main character who is intelligent, talented and brilliant. She is forced to take a leave of absence from her university where’s she’s a historian and a media darling. Then she’s offered a mysterious job to find an artefact in her Grandmother’s home town where she used to work at a museum.

She then has to solve a series of clues from the early 19th century relating to witches and Scottish migrants to find the artefact and foil the plans of a VR company that’s trying to make all Americans spend all their time in VR. They’re even influencing the President!

So we’ve got witches, puzzle solving, political intrigue and even some secret societies! This is chaotic but it’s such a fun read! I found this really entertaining. I loved the main character and her grandmother, I thought they were both so strong, cool and amazing!

Mystery and history all mixed up to make something that was an absolute blast to read!

Dnf @35%

There are just so many books that I can't in good faith keep reading books that I'm not liking or are confusing. I can't push through anymore. I saw the title Witches and assumed witches. Nope, just conspiracies and ai. No, thanks. I like books to be an escape not anxiety filled.

When Sidney finds herself on gardening leave from her job at the museum, she returns to her grandmother's house where she is offered a job at the local museum - using her 'escape room' skills to find a lost artifact that can keep the world safe from a future threatened by technology. She quickly realises that she has been manipulated into returning but is intrigued by the artifact and sets off to find it. As her adventure begins she learns that all is not as it seems with regard to her past, her family and the people she grew up with. To say more would reveal the plot!
This book shared an interesting take on the world as we know it. I will certainly be reading the next book in the series.

I found this book to be really interesting, mixing old and new times while it presents the story from the perspective of a famous and very quick-witted historian.

I especially liked all the puzzles and the fact that they were so varied, which made the story quite unpredictable.

I feel like all the information regarding the secret societies should have been delivered in a different manner, because I felt like I was gonna miss on something with the info dumps.

I really liked how the whole VR idea was presented. It seemed such a good idea and thinking that is a evil plan is obviously something a crazy person would think, but the way the plan unravel shows how things actually are, and it was unexpected.

I just want to add one more thing; the family connections that we discovered at the end, were really sweet and I'm happy the author decided to add that part into the story

An Intrigue of Witches
Esme Addison
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ stars

This novel was a very huge undertaking to say the least. This book had a whole LOT of narrative writing throughout the book. The author must have done an extensive amount of researching. It made me think of National Treasure/ Indiana Jones with witches. It was very fast paced and mystery around every corner that you had to figure out. Sometimes I think it was going too fast and I had to go back and reread it. This book goes into extensive detail about a lot of archeological finds. Overall, it was an adventurous book and I enjoyed the ride.

Thank you to NetGalley and Severn House for providing me with a free ebook in exchange for an honest review.

"An Intrigue of Witches ", by Esme Addison is a fun adventure with lots of twists and turns that will keep you guessing. Full of clues, this quest is an absolutely entertaining must for lovers of history!

A good intriguing mystery with Sidney a Black Historian who is asked to find a artifact and discovers the history of the town.
Good mystery,suspense,twists,a few surprises.
Good characters and story.
Voluntarily Reviewed.

Thank you to NetGalley for an e-ARC of An Intrigue of Witches!

If I'm being brutally honest, for the first half of this book, I did find myself bored and a little bit confused. I feel like the historical crossovers got too much at times (VR, American Witches emigrating to Scotland, a royal bloodline descended from Ancient Egypt... all that in one book was very overwhelming). However after the halfway point, the action and plot crossed over and I was gripped for the second half, and reminded me very much of a Tomb Raider movie! If there are any further books by Addison, I would be very happy to read them, especially if they involve the same loveable main character of Sidney!

BIPOC Paranormal Cozy-ish Mystery featuring an early American history professor who travels to North Carolina to hunt for a missing archaeological treasure and uncovers her own hidden magical legacy.

4/5 stars: This is the first entry in Addison's Secret Society Mystery series, which is a Paranormal Cozy-ish Mystery that takes place is North Carolina and that follows an early American history professor, working at the Smithsonian in Washington DC who returns to North Carolina. While visiting her grandmother, she take on the hunt for an ancient archaeological treasure using two hundred year old clues, ciphers and puzzles. The answers she finds plunges her into a world of secret societies and ancient bloodlines that link to her own hidden magical legacy. With plenty of twists and turns, Addison has masterfully crafted a mystery that will leave you on the edge of your seat. I came for the codes and puzzles and was NOT disappointed! Addison utilizes different types of puzzles, codes, tricks and hidden elements to create intricate and fascinating to solve clues. I also really enjoyed the detail that was paid to historical elements. If you're a fan of National Treasure and The Da Vinci Code this will be right up your alley. Additionally, Addison's writing and character work is stellar; the characters are well-rounded and complex while remaining incredibly likable. Sidney is gutsy, smart and so someone I would want in my corner. I also really loved her grandmother and Abner. The only drawback for me is the science fiction elements were a little to science-y for me. I got what Addison was doing with it and it works for the plot but it felt so “hard” science mixed with the interesting magic and witchcraft world building and the awesome treasure hunt/historical elements. Sensitive topics are discussed, so take care and check the CWs. Overall, a great start to a new series and I can't wait to see what comes next. I'll be keeping my decoder ring handy!

I received this eARC thanks to NetGalley and Severn House in exchange for an honest review. Publishing dates are subject to change.

Didn’t quite hit the mark for me as a whole. Definitely National Treasure feel, but for me not the same humour filled spirit. Tension and intrigue is built up from the beginning. Plenty of puzzles that only Sydney could possible solve; this was one issue for me, yes she has a particular knowledge base but I’m sure others could have to. Then the story became a bit too dense as the author brought in a lot of background American history. However, then the story grabbed my attention as the action speeded up again towards the end. Thank you to Severn House and NetGalley for the ARC. The views expressed are all mine, freely given.

An Intrigue of Witches - Esme Addison
Sidney Taylor is let go from her post at the Smithsonian, rather mysteriously. She returns home to her grandmother's house where she once worked as a history reenactor at a local museum. The mysterious museum director offers a huge sum of money to look for a missing artifact, enough to get her out of her current debt. But why does he insist this artifact has to be uncovered asap. The story has historical, and ancient connections mixed up with a future world of AI and virtual reality. A world that Sidney and her colleagues and family don't want to be part of and must race to fine the artifact before her enemies do in order to prevent this takeover..

I enjoyed the magical and historical elements but found the political AI world unnecessary and a bit superfluous. It was not for me anything like A Discovery of Witches which I loved.

Did not finish book. Stopped at 35%.
This is gonna have a lot of spoilers and just random thoughts i had throughout this book. I do feel like i could have finished this book but honestly it annoyed me so much that my intrigue into how it all turned out was not strong enough.

Now firstly when we are first introduced to our fmc omg she is so fucking annoying and the whole woe is me omg im in so much credit card debt because my parents are millionaires and wouldnt give me money but i had to live in the best neighbourhood and have the nicest clothes so im in debt is so crazy like wtf?!?

Also the plot has way too much going on, at the start i was like ok this is kinda cool we’re gonna have a mix of sci-fi and fantasy with this ultra modern world where vr is gonna take over and theres witches… well i got to 35% and shock surprise no witches yet. Its literally in the title how do we have no witches??

However i did enjoy that the author used actual people from history and as someone who doesnt really read historical fantasy i really enjoyed it.

The main reason i dnf’ed this book is because i just got the biggest info dumping of the randomest shit about this royal bloodline and a character starts saying shit like slave owners were having sex with their slaves because they wanted to continue the bloodline that ran through the slaves dna? like firstly how would they even know who had the royal blood and who didnt and then the whole convoluted story about this specific bloodline is supposed to rule the world and the ‘opposition’ has been trying to take them down for centuries is so far fetched its crazy.

An Intrigue of Witches is a relatively fast paced read featuring secret societies with their own agendas. I really appreciated how quick of a read this was. It’s worth noting, though, that there’s a lot of information presented in the relatively short book. However, because it’s on the shorter side, there wasn’t a lot of delving in to the details of the information presented. For the majority of the story it stays relatively at the surface level. Given that it’s the first book in the series, I’m hoping that means we’ll get more of a deep dive in future book(s). Unfortunately, I struggled with connecting to many of the characters. I’m hoping that will also change with future books as we spend more time with them. I really loved the whole premise of the book between the secret societies and puzzles hidden throughout history. The plot also featured enough tension from the competing societies and enough twists to keep me thoroughly engaged. If you enjoy magic mixed with history or the movie National Treasure, this book may be perfect for you.

What a great new creative mystery! I love the mix of historical fiction, fantasy fiction, and science fiction. I loved the storyline from start to finish. I also love how the main character started off skeptical and became more aware of the situation as the story progresses. I also like that clearly, there will be a second book, but most of the mysteries started in this book is cleared up by the end for the reader.

Seeing descriptions of this book from the author didn’t prepare me for the scope of this book. An Intrigue of witches really does combine mystery, science fiction, fantasy, legend and a treasure hunt. I am quite in awe of how the elements roll together to form a whole that is fascinating. It felt like the history was real. I really want some of the elements to be real.
I don’t want to go into details because this was such an experience to watch it unfold in my imagination that I don’t want to take the discovery experience from anyone else.
This is different from what this author has previously written and yet not completely. She is skillful in bringing legends or myths to life. Making the reader want them to be real because it would be so cool if they were real.
I highly recommend An Intrigue of Witches. Just know you’ll need to be up for an unusual experience.
Thanks to Netgalley and Severn House for the opportunity to read this book.

Cozy fantasy meets history and you have this story. I found the plot to have dense information that was a tad overload. For this being a series, it leaves me wondering how this can continue.

When you market a book as "National Treasure" meets "A Discovery of Witches," I go in with certain expectations. I expect secret societies, treasure hunting, and witches. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am. What I’m not expecting is all of the above plus time travel, AI, virtual reality, secret societies, witches, ancient Egypt, and the American Civil War.
This is a relatively short book for so much plot. Clocking in at less than three hundred pages, I felt at times like I was struggling to bite into an overstuffed sandwich. I expected thrills, chills, suspense, and maybe even a dash of dark academia, and what I got was something more akin to a sci-fi paranormal mystery conspiracy romp. Admittedly, this could be the fault of the marketing, but I just felt confused and disappointed by the millions of different directions the book seemed to want to go in.
More than the plot itself, the writing here is just… well, there’s no other way of putting it, so I’ll be blunt: it’s bad. The pacing is clunky, the verbs awkward switch tenses mid-paragraph, and the author relies so heavily on telling instead of showing that I times I felt condescended to. This is marketed as an adult mystery, and our protagonist is a grownass woman, so the abundance of over explaining felt incredibly irritating. This is a book where we’re often told how to feel about events which, readers of this blog will note, is a particular pet peeve of mine.
Speaking of our protagonist — what a disappointment. Sidney Taylor is a thirtysomething American history professor, but you wouldn’t know it from her juvenile reactions. At times, I felt like I was reading about a college student or someone in their early twenties. Her internal monologue was grating and meandering, and the numerous tangents and exposition dumps didn’t add anything to the book besides making me feel bored and irritated. Maybe I’m being too harsh, here, and I fully admit that, but something about this book just grated on me.
It’s a strange thing to say about such a short book, but I really feel this needs another heavy round of edits. The overstuffed plot, uninteresting characters, and clunky writing style made this a slog to get through. Rarely has it ever taken me this long to polish off 288 pages.

This book has a little bit of everything in it. It's a mix of multiple genres. The title alone drew me in. Plus I love scholarly fiction. I like reading books where the main character is highly educated. I find them relatable. How could you not love someone who works at the Smithsonian? It's hard to discuss this book without giving away spoilers. You reach a point where you can't put the book down because you need to find out who all is witches. I love when you aren’t quite sure who the bad guys are. It makes for a very intriguing read when you don’t know who to trust. I’m excited to read the next book in the series.

Conspiracy theories, history, secret societies, and magic all play major roles in this mystery, and the author does a great job at working them all together to make sense.

I especially like that this story features people of color, and asks us to question the history we've all been taught in school.

Sidney, an accomplished historian, suddenly finds herself without a job. Coincidentally, she receives an anonymous invitation to find a lost object (her specialty - finding historic objects) in her hometown, where her grandmother still lives. Throughout the story, Sidney reconnects with people from her past, in more ways than one! As she does, she discovers that not everything is as it seems. She begins to uncover a dangerous political plot, and this puts her life in danger. Yet she still pushes forward!

Well written and enjoyable read!

-secret societies
-diversity
-powerful fmc
-coming into powers story
-mystery 👀