Thank you @netgalley and Cursed Dragon Ship Publishing LLC for the arc copy of Root and Bone!

Root and Bone is like a 1950’s version of the tv show Supernatural but with sisters who are witches and a Branch Davidians cult twist. The sisters Leona and Jewel live in a small town where young women turn up brutally murdered. Leona decides that they need to help solve the murders because they can use their magic to find answers.

Overall, I really enjoyed the story of this book. The plot kept you wanting to read more to find out what happened in regards to the murders and to learn more about the sisters. I was actually more interested in learning about their magic sometimes than the plot! The banter between the sisters was cute, funny, and relatable. It was also entertaining to be the 1950’s time period with all the accents and colloquial language of that time. Every time Leona told Jewel “stop that dirty talk” I had to go find what the dirty talk actually was!

This is a great book for you if you like to read books that include: non-fantasy magic, paranormal, witches, mystery, thriller, a little bit of romance, and small town feels.

This book is so well written! The characters are all realistic characters, who have flaws and good qualities. The storyline is engaging, and fairly fast paced. I will be reading more from this author!

Thank you to the NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC to review voluntarily.

Root and Bone was an interesting read following two witch sisters as they solve a murder mystery in their small town.
They are both strong women in their own way and loyal to each other without fault. This story is filled with a variety of characters, both human and paranormal and it makes for an interesting story!
Though the speech is written to be very rural, small town sounding, it does interrupt the story’s flow. And the magic system doesn’t really make a lot of sense. There’s some elements which are consistent, but there’s no real explanation as to the spells or charms or differences between them.
The climax of the story was predictable and unfortunately I didn’t make a connection with any of the characters.

I like the true crime, witches vibe. I did not like how short it was and thought it could have a more in depth story. The characters were great but I wanted more. Hoping for a second book.

This story made me understand the phrase "lush atmosphere." Raney does a great job building a community that feels real, a small Appalachian community in the 50s. The leads are two sisters who are witches; they were born with the gift and were trained by a Granny woman (who may or may not be related to them?) to use their powers. Leona prefers to stick to the straight and narrow, giving healing and love spells out for a bit of extra cash while trying to support her deadbeat husband and young daughter. Jewel is the stereotypical wild younger sister who loves curses and poisons and sees no problem whatsoever using her powers for whatever she feels like. Leona can also see ghosts, which she uses to help people pass on to the other side and to have a ghost boyfriend. Fun stuff.
The pair set off to solve a grisly and ritualistic murder that the average human sheriff stands no chance with, and things spiral from there. The plot is decently compelling, if sometimes predictable.
There were some problems with consistency of background names and some timeline details that were distracting. Additionally, Raney had a habit of shelving characters that weren't immediately convenient to the plot. For example, Jewel starts out with a husband that she doesn't care for. Somewhere during the course of the book, he vanishes and is never brought up again. Other characters are shuffled in and out as necessary for the plot. The sisters also frequently feel like caricatures of people instead of real people, all their flaws and virtues pushed to 100 all the time.
Overall, an interesting read that was worth a few hours of my time.

I loved this one!! So different and fun and southern. It was funny, it was meaningful, sad, it had all the feelings!

Unfortunately I did not enjoy reading Root and Bone by Jessica Raney.

From what I can tell the story takes place sometime in the 1950s or 60s somewhere in a small town of Ames in the South (which I'm assuming based on the dialogue with the heavy southern dialect).

The book reads very YA, very dialogue heavy, more action than storytelling. The characters are very one dimensional, good and bad are portraid in a very straightforward and uninteresting way.

We are following Leona and Jewel, two sisters with magic. They took on themselves to figure out what had happened to Mary Silvus who went missing.
Jewel has a very childish and careless behavior, while Leona, who has two jobs and raising a small child seems to be the opposite. Both of their husbands are abusive and shallow.

The magic in the story is very witchy with seeing and taking to ghosts, curses, wards, potions and powders, etc. I enjoyed reading about the magical elements and getting some glimpses of the sisters' past and how they learned to use their magic.

Overall it is a quick read and for someone who likes YA fiction with a supernatural twist then they might enjoy it. I just wish there would have been more focus on the magical small town and murder mystery and less about the abusive family portraits.

Thank you for NetGalley for the andvance reader copy.

Imagine a small Appalachian rural village sometimes post WWII: life is quiet and tranquil, if a little repetitive. Now, imagine this community being shocked by the violent and ritualistic murder of one of its girls. Here come in Leona and Jewel, sisters and witches: they immediately know something supernatural is going on and they set on to find the mysterious killer, while trying to dodge magical and human dangers coming their way.

Let me start by saying what I loved most about this book: Jewel. She was the strongest character, in my opinion. I loved that she was not afraid to get her hands dirty to get what she wanted and protect the people she loved, and I enjoyed her relationship with Leona: it felt very realistic with them constant picking on each other. I also liked Cale and I would’ve loved to know more about him and his special link to Leona.

This book could’ve been a hit for me, if it weren’t for the fact that in the last 20% things started happening extra fast and sometimes without a real explanation; I didn’t completely understand the motives behind the killings and I didn’t agree with most of Leona’s decisions, especially when she let her good nature blur her judgement. I felt like some things were left unresolved voluntarily, to be tied up in the second book, but some other things were just forgotten along the way.

All in all, it was a good book that could’ve used a little more polishing but still grabbed my attention enough to make me add the sequel to my tbr.

This was a witchy mystery about two sisters in community set in the 1950's. Essentially there is a missing person, so Jewel and Leona decide to go on the hunt to find the cause of what happened and who is killing the women in town. The pace from the beginning was slow and felt 1-dimensional, however picked up to a better pace around the halfway mark. The magical aspect was enjoyable; I liked the witches, vampires, and werewolves. One qualm I had was that things just started happening in the town, and nothing was really explained as to why. Also I understand the grammar and the way the characters talked was a part of the time period and location, but this book was so dialogue heavy that it made it difficult to track what was going on. I wanted to like this a lot more than I did, but I did enjoy it.

I loved this book. It’s a magical story of two witch sisters living in the south in a post WW2 era. When a local girl goes missing it becomes evident something sinister is at play. The sister’s go on to solve the mystery of what’s going on in their sleepy town.
The banter and liveliness of the sisters is relatable and fun. The story has just the perfect balance of paranormal and occultic elements to capture the readers attention to all the magic that’s in play. The world building is lively and colorful made me want to dive in head first. I greatly enjoyed the mystery unfolding, it was a bit predictable but not in a way that takes a way from the story. I hope there’s a follow up of the Spencer sisters I genuinely need more!

Overall an interesting combination of true crime and witchy aspects. However the story felt kind of rushed and almost like being thrown in the middle of something that was already started.

I have mixed feelings about this one. It had some great concepts but I didn’t love the style. The characters were interesting but a lot of what they did did not make sense for who they were established as being. A love interest was interesting in his own right but somehow there needed to be a domestic abuse situation to explain why an MC needed to leave her husband – honestly, I’m kind off sick of that. It minimises actual abuse to use it as a tear down manouvere and it smacks of intellectual cowardice; just say that she made a mistake, she married the wrong person, she fell for someone else. Be emotionally honest. Anyway, I loved te concept but the delivery was wobbly in my opinion. I think it needed another pass with a developmental editor.

This is not the typical genre that I read, but I was intrigued by the description. This was entertaining, but I was never really invested in the characters or story.
Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for access to this eARC.

thank you so much to the publicer and the author for giving me an ARC of this book!
When I saw the description of this book, I was immediately sold! A murder mystery book where the main character is able to have a conversation with super natural creatures seemed right up my alley!
Unfortunately, when I started reading the book, I noticed right away that the story was written in a heavy accent. Because English isn't my first language, I struggled with reading the chapters and failed to understand some parts of the story because of it.
Therefore, I unfortunately had to DNF the book.
I would still very much recommend this book to other readers, the story seems very cool and I loved the main characters. But it wasnt for me.

Honestly this is going to be one of those tough reviews. Root and Bone is one of those books with a lot good about it - but also some flaws, and I'm having trouble synthetizing the goods and bads together, so I'm just going to lay them down and express my person response to the book at the end.

The goods:

The pacing of Root and Bone is fairly cracking, and in a good way. It does go somewhat from whoa to go, with perhaps a few early chapters warming us up, but by about 1/3 and definitely by halfway through, the speed of the story was racing and it sat well for an action packed tale.

In terms of the lore and magic, this was a very hard hitting and at times pulling no punches type approach. It's the sort of fantasy that I would really enjoy as a teen or young adult as it has a sort of no-holds barred violent approach to urban fantasy, it reminded me a little of early Anita Blake novels.

The MCs (not their husband btw) love interest was actually kinda powerfully written, I'm not usually one to be looking for a romance storyline, but the situation of Root and Bone was intriguing enough (albeit I'll mention some problematic type stuff later).

Finally even though the setup of the book kind of made it seem like something obvious would happen (e.g. one of the main threads was that Leona has a 'dark whisperer' e.g. an evil voice telling her to unleash black magic and just go ballistic on everyone - it seemed like an obvious setup that eventually releasing the power would save the day) however the story did make things more complex than that.

The bads

Hmmm. The first issue that sprung up for me is that the presentation of the story is very 1-dimensional and fairly melodramatic. This isn't really a book for subtlety and it does have at moment those times (even in an urban fantasy) where people interact in ways that just isn't very realistic. The first example is the MCs sister Jewel is essentially a bit of a flirt about town and this is shown to us by Jewel doing her thing in the local bar and men are literally hooting and gasping en-mass. There are countless other examples, violent men are violent, sanctimonious older sister is sanctimonious and so on.

On that note, I struggled with the juxtaposition of abuse in this story. Within the first few pages we are quickly introduced to both Leona's and Jewel's Husbands being physically abusive. When you combine this complication with the issue in the above paragraph - everything being fairly 1-dimenional - this creates a very strange mood for this book. Leona's presentation is a capable and powerful witch, in fact we are shown her using magic to control her husband almost as comic relief (he makes him poop himself). It sort of makes sense because abuse can occur to even the most capable and successful of people, however on the other hand the issue of the abuse and the main plot only cross over as they are both happening to her (I suppose you could say the main plot issues and the relationship are thematically linked by evil men but thats about it). This culminated in what were IMO very bizarre choice with Leona's daughter Peggy. Leona does not treat her daughter well, AT ALL, and its not presented as a comment on the above issues - e.g. its not portrayed as part of relationship abuse OR perhaps as a consequence of what else is going on, Leona is just straight up abusive to her daughter.

As a flip side to the fast pace and heavy action, this story could be considered quite juvenile. Characters say what they think, and do what they say. Bad guys are beyond redemption, Goodies are a bit more complex but lacking narrative threads between their good and bad points.

So my overall response is that I actually enjoyed Root and Bone quite a bit. Despite some major WTF moments I had fun and genuinely read through the book wanting to find out what lay ahead. The flaws mentioned above did sit extremely weirdly for me and I feel like for many readers this book might be a little too much.

Thank you to NetGalley and Jessica Raney for this ARC.
I had high hopes for this book; the cover art was beautiful, the synopsis was something right up my alley as well. I really struggled with this book though. The time frame of the story was very difficult to understand, I needed a bit better understanding of the societal views and how things functioned for the story to make more sense. I found myself half way through the book struggling to make sense of most of what had happened. I figured I would push through and hopefully it was an “ah-ha” moment at the end but unfortunately the confusion remained. The novel has a heavy dialogue which often can become confusing at who is speaking to who. Finally, I just really struggled with the grammar; I understand most of it was expected and required for the accents in the book, but even the narration in a lot of points had me rereading sentences several times trying to make it click.

Posted to Amazon and Goodreads

I ALSO ENJOY A GOOD MAGICAL THRILLER. THESE SISTERS
ARE FUNNY LOL. I LIKE THE STRENGTH AND LOVE THEY SHOW
FOR EACH OTHER, ALL WHILE BICKERING - TRYING TO FIND OUT WHO
IS KILLING WOMEN IN THEIR TOWN. I LIKE HOW THE AUTHOR
INTEGRATED MAGICAL CREATURES LIKE VAMPS AND WERES
IN A NATURAL WAY. HOPE THERE WILL BE A BOOK 2 WITH THESE
CRIME FIGHTING SISTERS.

4.75 stars!!! Not normally my genre of reading, but I gave it a try and was definitely not disappointed. An extremely powerful story of two sisters whose town is faced with the deaths of some local women and determined to figure it all out, with a little help from magic.

Characters were well developed and hard to get out of your head. They grabbed hold of the reader and told their story with flair. Isn’t it great when you can find a book that grabs your attention and won’t let go until you’ve finished it and then leave you wanting more? Readers who like mystery, conflict within family, and a little romance will enjoy this well written novel.

I might just have to read other novels by this author now and may have opened my interest to more fantasy and mystery.

I really liked this story. I reminded me of the TV show Witches of East End. The witty and don't care attitude of jewel and the carefull but bad ass of Leona worked so well together. It did take a while to get into the style of writing but thoroughly enjoyed it by the end of the book. Found it gave them all easy personalities to understand. I get the vibe that it could be another book which would be so cool to see them fighting crime of the supernatural world.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Two strong FMC in an Appalachian town with witchcraft and murder?? Sign me up! This book was fast paced and I loved the main characters. Be sure to be aware of triggers, there is animal abuse and violence against women in this book.

Granny Kay was the star of the show and I wish we had more of just her. I would read another book on her life before the girls. It’s a murder mystery with spooky paranormal aspects that can be a bit intense for some.