In the Hour of Crows

By: Dana Elmendorf

Narrated by: Brittany Pressley, Adam Gold

"In the Hour of Crows enthralls like a delicious dark spell.”
—Glendy Vanderah, bestselling author of Where the Forest Meets the Stars

In a small town in Appalachia, people paint their doorways blue to keep spirits away. Black ferns grow where death will follow. And Weatherly Opal Wilder is a Death Talker.

When called upon, she can talk the death out of the dying and save their lives—only once, never twice. But this truly unique gift comes at a price, rooting Weatherly to people who only want her around when they need her and resent her unfamiliar ways when they don’t.

Weatherly’s cousin Adaire also has a gift: she’s a Scryer and can see the future reflected back in dark surfaces. Right before she is killed in an accident, Adaire saw something unnerving, and that’s why Weatherly believes she was murdered—never thinking for a moment that it was an accident. But when Weatherly, for the first time, is unable to talk the death out of the mayor’s son, the whole town suspects she is out for revenge, that she wouldn’t save him.

With the help of clues Adaire left behind and her family’s Granny Witch recipe box, Weatherly sets out to find the truth behind her cousin’s death, whatever it takes.

Imbued with magic, witchery, and suspense, Dana Elmendorf’s In the Hour of Crows is a thrilling tale of friendship, identity, and love.

Great Storyline

From the performance of the readers to the story and epilog, this was a thoroughly great book@

love!!!

unique plot, which is hard to come buy in the world of witchery. great opening for further books and I sure hope there are more.

True YA book but underdeveloped

TLDR - it’s a true YA… with some dark concepts. It’s easy to get through and relatively interesting but doesn’t keep you on the edge of your seat or anything. Was an okay easy read but not a favorite. Audiobook was well read as well!

In fairness this is a YA book (although has some pretty dark concepts for one). However, there was very little world building and it was hard to picture the places or the time period really. The characters were also pretty flat and I didn’t particularly love the main character. The premise of their talents were cool but it didn’t explain well what talents others had which was confusing and no one else in the world seems to have magic? The magic ideas just seemed a bit underdeveloped.

the chapter that the whole book leads up to I had to reread 3 times to make sure I didn’t miss something because I was still confused and thought I missed something.

However the few things that were developed were well thought out and the story moved fast enough to keep a reader interested

Overall it’s interesting enough to finish but not my favorite book.

Loved

I loved the story line. The narrator was fantastic. Never a lull in the story.

That was… something ✌️

Update - In chapter 12 — I’m at the point where the FC is doing tea time with 5th graders and she said “5th graders might be too old for tea time but they are only a year or two younger than me so I guess it’s ok”.

I’m sorry what? Did the author forget the age of her own protagonist? lol 24 is more than a year or two older than 13-14. So maybe the FC is supposed to be like 18?

Original review:

I had to give up. 🙄

The book was way too angsty for me. Lots of emotions, not a lot of depth. There is also way too much inner monologue on an FC who was simply boring to read about. This book should definitely be labeled as young adult, more towards young. I definitely think the author made the FC 24 simply to get a wider range of readers because this book is so simple with a lot of plot holes. Even the “jokes” were just simple. Something I would’ve loved when I was 14/15. 🥱

The FC doesn’t even have a job and the whole plot is trying to find what happened to her. Even though we already know so I was constantly confused why they are investing a death of someone they already know how she died. She lives with a grandma she hates in a small town where apparently half the population dies. 🤡

If you’re looking for an interesting romantic story full of intrigue and wonder, this is not the book to read. Lol again, it’s very very light and simple. I was just bored throughout waiting for it to pick up but it’s constantly the inner monologue of the FC going about her day to day. Not my cup of tea. ☕️

Hope the book gets labelled correctly. Again it’s Young Adult, rated G, there’s barely any cussing. ✌️