How To Hang A Witch by Adriana Mather

After Sam’s father is hospitalised, she has to move from New York to Salem with her stepmother, Vivian. Unfortunately, Sam is related to Cotton Mather, one of the men responsible for the Salem Witch Trials, and to say she feels unwelcome in Salem is an understatement… She is particularly unnerved by The Descendants, a mysterious and tight-knit group of girls related to those persecuted in the Trials. At the same time, she must deal with Elijah, the handsome but angry ghost who has appeared in her house, and her new neighbour Jaxon only complicates things further. When a centuries-old curse is rekindled, Sam finds herself at the centre of it. Can she stop history repeating itself?

I quickly read the description for this book and even before I finished I knew I had to read this book. How to Hang a Witch has witches, ghosts and romance all set in a high school in Salem, who wouldn’t want to read this book? It has everything you need for an absolutely brilliant read. I am so glad I got the opportunity to read this because I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish.

I found Sam to be a very interesting character. Because she moves to Salem at the start of the book you really feel for her when she starts school and people start talking about her and her family. You feel her upset, anger and confusion because she doesn’t know much about her family history and doesn’t understand why people are blaming her. But Sam is not a character who takes this lying down, she stands up for herself and gives everyone a piece of her mind. Some of the remarks she comes out with made me smile when I was reading this book. I instantly connected with Sam and I cannot wait to read more about her in book two.

I don’t think I have ever read anything to do with the Salem Witch Trails, so this story for me was very intriguing and original. The high school setting was the perfect choice and when reading it definitely felt like the author knew about how high school really is. I loved that there was quite a lot of history detailed in this book but it was written in such a way that it didn’t feel like you were getting dumped with loads of information all at once. Reading How to Hang a Witch has definitely peaked my interest in this subject and I will be checking more books out about it.

After reading a couple of chapters this book started to remind me of the time I first read Twilight. The characters and the setting bought back memories of Twilight, but I am happy to say that the writing in this book is so much better. Straight away I was invested in the characters and I need to know what was going to happen with the story, and I think all this is to do with the writing, its so easy to visualise everything in your head. The chapters were relatively short which definitely helped with the pacing of this book. I didn’t find myself getting bored while reading this because I didn’t have time, there was so many things happening that before I knew it I was at the end of the book. If anything the one problem I have with this book is that its not long enough, I could of read another two hundred pages.

I would recommend this book to readers who love a good supernatural teen book. This is a well written book that will keep you on the edge of your seat and leave you unable to put the book down. I am so happy this is the start of a series because I cannot wait to see whats going to happen in the second book, Haunting the Deep.

I rate this book 4/5 stars

***I was sent a copy of this book for review. Everything in this review is my own honest opinions.***