Book Review: "Weyward" by Emilia Hart

This is a book that I have been waiting to read for a while. Written by Emilia Hart, Weyward is a book about both the term that refers to a person who goes against the grain and a family that is very special for its lineage of incredibly strong women. From the various tragedies that our three women encounter in the novel to the men that try to force them into corners, if there is one thing we learn it is that we should never simply trust our men for they do not always want the best for us. This book explores the extremes of those situations. Situations such as: unwanted pregnancy, rape, assault and domestic violence. Weyward may be a fantastic book, but it does not come without its oddities. These oddities may suit some but they left a little sourness in my mouth after the book was over.

First of all, we have three characters - Altha, Violet and Kate. They live far apart from each other with Altha living in the 17th century, Violet living in the midst of World War 2 and Kate in 2019. All of these women are connected by a house in Cumbria referred to as the Weyward house. It is a small and strange cottage-like home in which Kate will go on to find weird trinkets, boxes and letters as she escapes an abusive ex-boyfriend who is hell-bent on knowing her exact locations, searches and thoughts at every single moment of the day. He is basically a menace - but I can't say that this is the first time I'm hearing of this happening. Unfortunately, Kate's situation reflects the realities of a lot of women who go through life having their partners install spyware on their phones, locking them inside the house and forcing them to play the role of housewife. Luckily enough though, Kate escapes.

As for Violet, her story is absolutely horrifying. Her father is a brute and a drunkard and absolutely nothing in the book could make me think otherwise. He does not care about his daughter as much as he cares about his son, but thank god that his son cares about his sister or Violet might have suffered the same horrible fate as her mother. Her father is not a good father at all - but Violet's trouble with men has not even started with her father. Frederick is the real nightmare here. I will leave you to read the book and find out why that might be.

Altha is on trial for witchcraft and I have to say, I found her story a little bit hollow. It was like there was not enough there and more than often some of her chapters were only a page or so long and then Kate's were several pages. I would have liked more background and depth into exploring the reality of the witchcraft age rather than sticking it out with the escapee for too long.

This is where some of the problems arise with this book. The main issue this book has is pacing. Altha's chapters are more than often really short, the book's pacing starts off really slow and then in the last 100 pages everything seems to just happen. There's a lot of trinket nonsense as well. Violet's deal with her mother's necklace is there mostly for dramatic effect and I honestly do not think it needed to be there. Most of the book is Kate finding stuff out, or just finding stuff.

There is too much just 'happening' for no need and it really destroys the unique pacing that the book started out with in the beginning. At the start, it was slow, steady and descriptive even with Kate escaping right at the start. But by the end of the book, I felt like I was being rushed away. There's lots of stuff being found and lots of stuff going on, no real atmospheric description and then the book kind of just falls off and ends.

That being said, the concept of this book and its characters are very well-designed. The book may have not been entirely for me, but it definitely was somewhere in the ballpark. I would give it a read for yourself to find out whether you enjoy it or not.