Nestled within an enchanted forest is the Grove, a community where witches and warlocks practice elemental magic, brew mystical potions, and lock their cellars against beer thieving gnomes. Life is quiet and uneventful. Well, except when Hazel's long-lost father uses necromancy to trap her dead mother's soul.
That simply won't do. Necromancy is forbidden in the Grove, and for good reason too. Nobody wants filthy corpses shambling around, mussing up one's garden. Hazel is determined to find her father and undo his treachery.
But despite Hazel's plans of becoming a one-woman army, she can't do everything alone. It's not until wild sister Holly convinces her to leave the house for once and go to a party that Hazel finds a pair of unlikely allies in two bickering warlock brothers.
Together, the four of them go on a journey that takes them out of the Grove and into a world where necromancy reigns and the dead won't respectfully stay in the grave. Hazel will do whatever it takes to stop her father and save her mother's soul. Even if it means turning to necromancy. Even if it means losing her friends. Because they would never help a necromancer. Would they?

Wow, I actually cannot believe I managed to finish this book. I am so proud of myself for not digging my eyeballs out because this was torture for my mind and soul. I've been delaying this read for a while now because some inner part of me that actually sees sense refused to read it. Well, that's what I get for ignoring the smartass.

Hazel and Holy are two sisters living alone after their mother died – but, their father trapped her soul in a geas. One day, Hazel decides to chase her necromancer father and make him free her mother’s spirit so she can leave this world in peace. Two sisters travel alongside two warlocks Hemlock and Hawthorn to the town Sardnum, known for necromancers who live there. They think Hazel’s father might be there and follow clues until they find the Shrine – place where warlocks go to become necromancers. Hazel has to make a lot of difficult decisions and sacrifices in order to find her father, but will she be able to preserve her old self and resist the call of dark powers and arts.

At the very beginning, I felt pretty optimistic and even expected a mediocre fantasy novel. Plot started with a peculiar note and has been getting interesting up to some point where it all went downhill. I don't know when it happened, just that I suddenly realized how boring this book was. It's basically 500 pages of going around in circles - visiting 8393930 wizards with wannabe-funny names and listening to Holly whine about Hazel actually doing something. After half of the book it was all brought down to repeating two same problematics and plot got watered down to basically nothing. As I got close to an end I swear I could feel my soul slowly leaving my body.

Attempts of humor were lowkey desperate and the entire novel radiated with infantility. All their problems were banal and childish, and schemes - oh my god - even more so. Look! that's the third guy we asked to show us where magic necromancers' secret meeting spot is, but he won't help us so WE'LL HAVE TO THREAT HIM WITH INHABITATION OF A CELLAR GNOME. It turned out, the gnome is capable of solving all of their problems :')

There appears to be a tiny light spot in this book, in the form of the world building. I liked Snider's magic system, which consists of four elemental types of magic - Wyr, Weaving, Hearth, and Wild. There's a fifth practice, dark one that combines all other and is called necromancy. There's a big dilemma through Hazel's journey about whether it's bad and should Hazel use it as a means to an end. I even got interested in the problematics and Hazel's inner fight, but it got boring after a while... like everything else.

The plot twist at the end was unexpected and fun in a way, but at that point, I completely stopped caring what happened to any of the characters so it didn’t leave the impression it was supposed to.

Ebook kindly provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.