Sweet & Bitter Magic

By: Adrienne Tooley

Narrated by: Ferdelle Capistrano, Andrea Emmes

In this “thoughtful, ambitious, and unexpected” (Kirkus Reviews) debut fantasy perfect for fans of Margaret Rogerson and A. B. Poranek, a witch cursed to never love meets a girl hiding her own dangerous magic, and the two strike a dangerous bargain to save their queendom.

Tamsin is the most powerful witch of her generation. But after committing the worst magical sin, she’s exiled by the ruling Coven and cursed with the inability to love. The only way she can get those feelings back—even for just a little while—is to steal love from others.

Wren is a source—a rare kind of person who is made of magic, despite being unable to use it herself. Sources are required to train with the Coven as soon as they discover their abilities, but Wren—the only caretaker to her ailing father—has spent her life hiding her secret.

When a magical plague ravages the queendom, Wren’s father falls victim. To save him, Wren proposes a bargain: if Tamsin will help her catch the dark witch responsible for creating the plague, then Wren will give Tamsin her love for her father.

Of course, love bargains are a tricky thing, and these two have a long, perilous journey ahead of them—that is, if they don’t kill each other first.

Critic reviews

"In this debut fantasy audiobook, magic has a price, and two young women make a contract that will cost each of them more than they know. Tamsin, portrayed by narrator Andrea Emmes, was banished as a young witch while trying to save her twin sister. Now Wren goes to her, seeking a cure for her father, who has fallen victim to a plague. Wren's innocent view of life is unfolded by narrator Ferdelle Capistrano. Emmes captures Tamsin's difficult emotional transformation from an inability to feel love to a hopeful attitude about the future. Capistrano illuminates more subtle changes as Wren loses some of her naïveté and uncovers her strength."

Great book

The book and narration is well worth a listen. Interesting characters, world and story. although there are some minor issues. it feels like one of the characters doesn't really have proper motivation for the "journey" in the story. I do wish there were some extra motivation, and it could easily have been fixed by mixing in parts from the rest of the story. Parts of the story was also Very predictable. To the point where you'll know what's going to happen 2-3 chapters before it happens. To not spoil anything, I won't go into details. But other then that, there are little to complain about. I'd say it's a very good book with good characters and a pretty satisfying ending.

Really liked the book

Really liked the story but tamzens narrator sounded pretty robotic and terrible. Overall though it was good

Best book EVER

I loved this book it was so amazing and so lovely and Beautiful is just loved it

Good book, not the best narration

The book was pretty great overall I really enjoyed it However, the narration felt off to me. The narration felt a bit robotic, most of the time the way the story was narrated, it didn't seem to match with how the lines were written. This really threw me off and took me out of the story pretty often.

awesome

I really loved the little bits of classic fair tales that were thrown in there. they were different but recognizable for what they were.
they sorry was really good and had a few surprises too.