REVIEW: The Witches of East End by Melissa De La Cruz

Rating: 3/5
Audience: Older Young Adult/Adult
Genre: Paranomal Romance/Mystery/Fantasy

Summary:
It’s the beginning of summer in North Hampton, and beautiful Freya Beauchamp is celebrating her engagement to wealthy Bran Gardiner, the heir to Fair Haven and Gardiners Island. But Freya is drawn to Bran’s gorgeous but unreliable brother Killian, and sparks fly when the two decide to play a dangerous game, following an ancient story of love, betrayal and tragedy that harks back to the days of Valhalla.

Witches of East End follows the Beauchamp family—the formidable matriarch Joanna and her daughters Freya and Ingrid. Freya, a sexy bartender, has a potion to cure every kind of heartache, while Ingrid, the local librarian, solves complicated domestic problems with her ability to tie magical knots. Joanna is the witch to see when modern medicine has no more answers; her powers can wake the dead. Everything seems to be going smoothly until a young girl, Molly Lancaster, goes missing after taking one of Freya’s irresistible cocktails. As more of the town’s residents begin disappearing, everyone seems to have the same suspects in mind: the Beauchamp women.
Lucinda’s Thoughts:
I really enjoyed this book. As a fan of mythology it was refreshing to see a tale with Norse, rather than Greek mythology at its core.  The character development was interesting and kept me reading.  I finished this book quickly.  The one drawback to this book is the “too” neat ending.  The book seemed to end very abruptly, with a very hurried resolution to problems that should have taken at least a couple more chapters to reach their denouement.  This book comes with a PG-13 rating due to  some steamy romantic scenes.  While they are steamy they are tastefully written.  The epilogue provided an unseen twist that I’m sure will lead to the next book in the series.  This author also writes the Bluebloods vampire series for young adults.