Starred Review ALA Booklist

Starred Review Elloren Gardner, 17, is the exact image of her famous dead grandmother, the greatest of Gardnerian mages ough she lacks magical powers. After her parents' death, Elloren and her brothers are raised in an isolated forest village by their sweet and retiring uncle. Elloren plans to go to university and become an apothecary, but her scheming politician aunt wants her to marry Lukas Grey, a powerful mage and her aunt's political ally. After Elloren refuses Lukas' proposal, she finds her aunt's influence extends to making her life at university dangerous and unpleasant. At school, Elloren meets all sorts of different creatures nged Icarals, shapeshifters, Elves, and Selkies d finds herself falling for handsome Yvan, whose Keltish background makes him off-limits for a high-born Gardnerian like herself. Elloren learns to question authority and Gardnerian history, while slowly me readers will say too slowly, though several other planned books should further her growth veloping empathy for different races. Forest uses a richly imagined magical world to offer an uncompromising condemnation of prejudice and injustice, while maintaining comfortably predictable romances in a fast-paced school setting. This balance isn't perfect: Forest too often loses the kind of focus readers will want when dealing with such sensitive topics as race, gender, and bloodlines. But with lively secondary characters and an especially nasty rival (imagine a female Draco Malfoy), this 600-page tome should find fans in those who like Harry Potter and Tamora Pierce.

Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews

Transported from her sheltered village life to join the diverse, magical student body at Verpax University, Elloren Gardner's comfortable sense of history is challenged by living and learning alongside Elves, shape-shifting Lupines, and even feared, demonic Icarals.In Gardneria, mages rule the land, brought to power by Elloren's illustrious forebears, including Elloren's magically powerful grandmother, The Black Witch, Carnissa Gardner, who drove back enemy forces in the Realm War; however, a Gardnerian Seer predicts a new Black Witch will rise to battle a Great Winged One. Yet although she's the spitting image of Carnissa, with the black hair, glimmering skin, and green eyes characteristic of pure-blooded Gardnerians, Elloren appears devoid of magical powers in a society that prizes them. Pressured by her politically powerful aunt Vyvian to be wandfasted to attractive Level Five Mage Lukas Grey, Elloren draws the ire of his jealous, would-be suitor Fallon Bane—another Level Five Mage rumored to be the next Black Witch. At Verpax, Elloren must room with two Icarels and work alongside rainbow-hued Urisks and Kelts whose "blood is polluted" with other races'. But as Elloren slowly befriends her strange set of schoolmates (Lupine twins Diana and Jarod, Icaral roommate Ariel, and attractive and mysterious Kelt Yvan) she's challenged to confront her own prejudices. At book's end, Yvan, Elloren, and the mysterious white wand she possesses brim with potential power. In Elloren's tale, this briskly paced, tightly plotted novel enacts the transformative power of education, creating engaging characters set in a rich alternative universe with a complicated history that can help us better understand our own. A massive page-turner that leaves readers longing for more. (Fantasy. 14-adult)

Horn Book

Elloren carries physical resemblance to her iconic Black Witch grandmother but lacks her powerful magic. At the premier university, Elloren encounters unsolicited trials as well as other races her kind historically distrusts. Gradually illustrating overt and institutional bigotry, readers dive deep into the fantasyland's history and social politics as the novel chronicles Elloren's progression from a position of prejudice to one of more openness.

Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

Transported from her sheltered village life to join the diverse, magical student body at Verpax University, Elloren Gardner's comfortable sense of history is challenged by living and learning alongside Elves, shape-shifting Lupines, and even feared, demonic Icarals.In Gardneria, mages rule the land, brought to power by Elloren's illustrious forebears, including Elloren's magically powerful grandmother, The Black Witch, Carnissa Gardner, who drove back enemy forces in the Realm War; however, a Gardnerian Seer predicts a new Black Witch will rise to battle a Great Winged One. Yet although she's the spitting image of Carnissa, with the black hair, glimmering skin, and green eyes characteristic of pure-blooded Gardnerians, Elloren appears devoid of magical powers in a society that prizes them. Pressured by her politically powerful aunt Vyvian to be wandfasted to attractive Level Five Mage Lukas Grey, Elloren draws the ire of his jealous, would-be suitor Fallon Bane—another Level Five Mage rumored to be the next Black Witch. At Verpax, Elloren must room with two Icarels and work alongside rainbow-hued Urisks and Kelts whose "blood is polluted" with other races'. But as Elloren slowly befriends her strange set of schoolmates (Lupine twins Diana and Jarod, Icaral roommate Ariel, and attractive and mysterious Kelt Yvan) she's challenged to confront her own prejudices. At book's end, Yvan, Elloren, and the mysterious white wand she possesses brim with potential power. In Elloren's tale, this briskly paced, tightly plotted novel enacts the transformative power of education, creating engaging characters set in a rich alternative universe with a complicated history that can help us better understand our own. A massive page-turner that leaves readers longing for more. (Fantasy. 14-adult)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In this intoxicating tale of rebellion and star-crossed romance, 17-year-old Elloren Gardner enrolls at Verpax University to study healing. Elloren-s grandmother Carnissa was a powerful Mage known as

School Library Journal

Gr 8 Up-t is one thing to be the granddaughter of Carnissa Gardner, the legendary Black Witch, but it's another to be the spitting image of her. Elloren Gardner discovers this from the moment she is uprooted from her uncle's secluded house and enrolled at Verpax University, which is rumored to be "racially integrated," to Elloren's great shock (Elloren shares her aunt's opinion that the integration is "misguided"). While outwardly resembling a bildungsroman, albeit a fantasy one, this novel features a protagonist who remains naive for far too long and, unfortunately, is painfully slow to confront the racist attitudes that she has inherited and that are essential to Gardnerian dominance. By the book's end, readers will wonder if she has learned anything at all. Teens will have to get through hundreds of pages of stereotypical characterizations of marginalized groups (non-Gardnerians are hateful and ultraviolent, their blood is "polluted," they mate like animals, the non-Gardnerian women are trying to steal Gardnerian men, etc.) before Elloren begins to recognize that maybe Gardnerians are the bad guys in her realm. Although unlearning prejudices is a timely theme in YA, Forest handles this issue clumsily. In a particularly rough, tone-deaf scene, mean girl Fallon berates Effrey, a purple-skinned enslaved Urisk girl. Elloren eventually comes to the rescue, and Sparrow, another enslaved girl, approves of her actions with a smilejust one of the many white saviorlike moments throughout. The world-building also leaves a lot to be desired: the Gardnerian creation story is an almost verbatim retelling of Genesis, and there are sporadic, vague mentions of martial arts and elemental spirits in this otherwise "Harry Potter" meets Tolkien universe. VERDICT Poor writing and character development contribute to an overall uneven handling of race and racism in a fantasy setting.Della Farrell, School Library Journal

Voice of Youth Advocates (Thu Apr 28 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

In The Black Witch, Elloren Gardner attends university to train in Apothecary Sciences and, ultimately, becomes part of a resistance. Elloren refuses to be wandfasted despite her elite aunt’s insistence. The uncle who raised her wants Elloren to wait until after her two years of university to be betrothed. He knows Elloren possesses the magic of her famous grandmother, but he keeps it secret because he does not want her to fight in an unjust war. Classmate Fallon Bane bullies Elloren because Fallon wants to be with Lukas Grey, an elite mage who prefers Elloren. Elloren falls in love with another man, and romances across ethnic divisions function to slowly chip away at Elloren’s acceptance of the religious and social hierarchies of her culture. Aspects of The Black Witch will bother fantasy readers. The beings and rules of this world need more description (presumably to be developed in a sequel). There is a reliance on stock elements—a “chosen one” goes to a magic school and becomes a hero. Important characters drift out of Elloren’s attention, like her sick uncle. She responds negatively when her brother, Trystan, reveals his attraction to men. She parrots the ideologies of her society until, after enough exposure to a diverse university population, Elloren moves beyond her biases and starts to check her privilege—halfway through the long novel. Characters from nondominant groups suffer seriously while the first-person narrative perspective requires the reader to empathize with Elloren in her awakening. What begins as a romantic fantasy about a racist woman in a sexist society morphs into an activist’s coming-of-age story. While The Black Witch is entertaining, it is also troubling, seemingly trying to show the injustice of racism while (unintentionally?) reinforcing it.—Amy Cummins.