The Return of the Witch continues Elizabeth and Tegan's story five years later. Tegan has learned how to hone her craft as a witch. We are introduced to new characters. I liked Erasmus. He made me smile.
This book got repetitive, but the historical detail was fantastic. I wish we could've up the fantasy factor, but all in all, it was a magical story with a satisfying ending. 3.6 ( )

Spoilers for those who have not read "The Witch's Daughter."

I don't even know what to say. I absolutely adored The Witch's Daughter, though I found it to be overly long at times. "The Return of the Witch" had a little bit too much going on for me to feel really immersed in the book. The sudden love one character had for another came out of nowhere. And the ending didn't work.

Told in the first person by two characters, "The Return of the Witch" follows Elizabeth and Tegan from the first book. Elizabeth as readers know went off to the Summerlands (witch heaven) in order to ensure that warlock Gideon was kept imprisoned forever. Five years has passed and Elizabeth has returned to Earth after she and others realize that Gideon was able to somehow escape from the Summerlands. Elizabeth wants to do what she needs to in order to ensure that Gideon is imprisoned once again and to protect Tegan who she loved as a daughter.

Elizabeth is still the same character I remember from the last book. I really wish that Ms. Brackston had spent more time on Elizabeth's power to heal. What I loved about the last book is that you got to see Elizabeth through the ages and how she used what she knew in order to nurse and doctor those around her. Her only source of focus through this whole book was how to protect and or rescue Tegan. It just started to get boring after a while. Every time Elizabeth caught up to Tegan something stupid would occur. I honestly don't have any other words for it at this point.

Tegan has grown in the five years since Elizabeth left. I at first was a little bit concerned that we were going to get a lot of mess from Tegan about how she was abandoned. However, besides some initial pulling away from Elizabeth, we were luckily as readers spared that. I do have a problem with the fact that Tegan was set up as some super duper Mary Sue of a witch. It just caused me to roll my eyes. Tegan goes around and travels for five years and learns from other witches. Apparently no other witch besides Tegan thought to ever do this. So based on what she has learned she is now going to be the ultimate witch.

Gideon is just a joke. I mean I found him to be more menacing in the last book. His only power seems to be to talk a lot and look menacing. He was such a let down in this book. When Elizabeth figures out what power brought Gideon back from the Summerlands I literally said out loud, well duh. It was not that great of a reveal, I did pretty much laugh at it though.

We are introduced to other new characters in this book and I wish that I was feeling any of them. One of them named Erasmus really did not work for me at all. He was set up as a source of romance for Elizabeth, but good lord, Elizabeth had more chemistry with the pet mouse in this story than with Erasmus.

The writing got a bit tedious when we switched to Elizabeth's passages. I thought the book would be split 50/50 the whole way with us changing perspectives. Instead we stuck with Elizabeth a good 3/4 of the book with some interjections made by Tegan. I was way more interested in Tegan's sections. We got to hear about her additional training which sounded interesting. I still quibble over her being the ultimate witch though since it seemed a bit ridiculous to me. That said, Elizabeth's passages were just her going over the same thing over and over.

Having Elizabeth and Tegan walking through time was just not interesting. I don't feel like Ms. Brackston used these other time periods to good affect like she did in the last book. Due to Elizabeth being rushed and on a timeline to find Tegan definitely colored things and I just didn't find these other timelines interesting at all.

The ending was a bit of a letdown. The final battle was pretty much a snooze. And I hated what Elizabeth settled for in the end. Ms. Brackston leaves herself enough wiggle room to have additions to the series though. ( )

DNF I don't remember why I did not finish this book which tells you how not into it I was. I enjoyed the first book immensely but some reason I could not get into this one I felt like they were running in circles and the story wasn't really getting anywhere. I cannot stand circling books and I just wanted to know what happens so I read some spoilers and decided that was good enough ( )

This is the third book by Paula Brackston I've read and I'm really enjoying her writing. Her stories are very easy to read with interesting plots and developments. ( )

**I received this book in a GoodReads giveaway in exchange for an honest review.**

I liked this book better than it's prequel, so it's always nice when the sequel is better. I feel like the author improved immensely and this story line was a lot more engaging. I also love, love, love this cover. It's absolutely gorgeous. I liked the characters, I liked the story line, I liked the world building. Overall I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars. I would recommend this book. ( )