Review for The Iron Witch by Karen Mahoney

Donna Underwood isn’t your typical teenage girl, she knows secrets, secrets about magic, other realms, secret societies and faeries and to top it off when she was a kid she was in a freak attack with a fey monster leaving her with mangled hands and arms and a dead father. After excruciating magical treatments Donna’s arms are left healed with Iron tattoo’s, giving her inhuman strength and a powerful iron enhanced weapon against the evil wood elves that attacked her and her father. So when the fey start kidnapping the people Donna loves and replacing them with faerie doppelgangers Donna knows it’s up to her to save them, and so with the help of gorgeous half faerie half human Xan Donna sets off to put an end to the evil wood elves who have haunted her nightmares all of her life even if it costs her the ultimate betrayal… I’ve read a few faerie books and I have to say that none of them have really impressed me. I was pretty much ready to just accept that maybe faeries weren’t for me when I heard about The Iron Witch. It sounded completely original and not like any other fey books I’ve read with the alchemist element thrown in and so I decided to give it a go. The Iron Witch had me intrigued pretty much straight away. I’m a sucker for all things magical so the alchemist part of the story really interested me and I loved how Karen Mahoney connected it in with a faerie world. The books fairly short but it packs a punch and for a debut novel to a brand new series it definitely has me wanting to know more about this world. Karen Mahoney answers just enough questions to leave you closing the book satisfied but at the same time has developed this world that has so much potential that you can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen next. As for characters I really loved Xan from the moment I met him but that’s not to say that I didn’t like Donna’s best friend Navin too. Although the romance was fairly limited in The Iron Witch I can definitely see a love triangle developing in future books and I have a feeling that Donna won’t be the only one torn between the boys! I found Donna to be a really interesting lead character. Her Iron tattoos and the abilities that come with them fascinated me and was a really original concept to the story. She was a strong, clever heroine and I especially enjoyed reading her journal entries as they really gave an insight into how Donna was feeling and I felt like I got to know her a lot better during that time. I can’t wait to learn more about her and the alchemists and their magic in future books. Overall I would recommend The Iron Witch to fey fans looking for a new take on the faerie worlds they’ve come to know and love and even to those none faerie lovers like me there’s still an enchanting, dark, new world to discover making The Iron Witch an enjoyable read for everyone. My Rating 3.5/5 stars ***1/2 Thanks go to Random House for sending me this book to review