Title: Hidden Gifts
Author: Christine Pope
Series: The Witches of Canyon Road book 1
Age Category: Young Adult
Published by:
Pages: 382 p.
Genre: Urban fantasy
About Hidden Gifts
Miranda has known since her teens that she is supposed to marry a stranger. Long ago her mother made a bargain with the Santa Fe witch clan, in exchange for their help fighting an evil warlock.
Miranda's parents have tried everything to save Miranda from this arranged marriage but the Santa Fe witches do not accept, even if Miranda has no powers of her own.
Or does she? When she arrives at Santa Fe, her power sparks, just like the spark between her and the man she is supposed to marry. Can she figure out how to control them?
My Thoughts on Hidden Gifts
Happy New Year everyone I hope you have had a wonderful New Year’s Eve! Wow, 2024 already and this year is going to be an exciting year for me, with lots of changes. I am looking forward to this new chapter in my life. Before I dive into this review, I want to say that this review will contain spoilers. I just wanted to do a bit of a discussion for this one as this will be our first Witchy Read of the month!
I never read about an arranged marriage story before, this was the first one for me. It was a little bit daunting for me, as I am not a big fan of being bound in that way to someone. What I liked about this story is that we get to see all the insecurities Miranda our main character feels about being shipped off to Santa Fe, not knowing anything about the guy she is to marry, and having no clue what he looks like. It would be my worst nightmare.
Not only do we see Miranda’s side of the story we also have Rafe’s point of view. He also is not pleased about the arranged marriage, and he clashes with his mother about this every step of the way. However, he does also respect the family obligations, and when he finally meets Miranda, he starts to develop feelings for her.
I also like Cat, this is Rafe’s sister, she tries to make Miranda feel at home, she is a great character, and we also see that she tries to protect Miranda from her mother. I think Cat makes the story a lot more pleasant for the audience. She is that bubbly fun friend we all want in our lives.
Another side character that seems to be very nice to Miranda is Simon, she meets him on the bus when she travels to Santa Fe, and they hit it off, she feels very comfortable with him. He seems nice enough however, the book takes an interesting turn in the end. I had not seen this one coming, as Simon turned out to be the bad guy in this story. He also is not a normal human but also a witch, that was the most surprising part of the story.
I hated the ending; Simon had put a curse on Rafe. The curse made Rafe tell Miranda in public that he did not wish to marry her. Crushing her soul and driving her right into the arms of Simon. This part was all fine but what came after is the part I have a problem with, it was the ease with which Miranda accepted Simon’s magic, no doubts, no mistrust nothing. And in the end, accepting Simon’s help to train her without knowing a damn thing about it.
Come on, I know that she has grown up sheltered and is a bit naïve, but this is just too easy. I would have also liked to see that the story wraps up a bit more, not just ending on the scene I just described. It could have given us more of a tease so we will be eager to read the next book in the series. For me this ending fell a bit flat, I would continue the series, but the ending really could use some improvement.
The witchy rating of Hidden Gifts
On the witchy side of things, we have a coven, we have witches with individual powers. We do not have a whole lot of spell casting or usage of power in this book. There are some splashes here and there like Miranda finding her power of being able to talk to ghosts and jump from one place to another.
There is a lot of individual use of powers, but not joined as you see in some witchy stories. I like that these witches have adjusted to modern times. The setup for this book is great but I would like to dive much deeper into this covens magic. I hope that the rest of the series goes into more depth on that front.
The focus of this story was more on the world-building and character-building. It was important too, to make the characters likable and believable. Overall we had average witchyness so therefore I give it three cauldrons: I want more.
Overall rating
I loved the overall feel of the book, the character-building seems very realistic. I like that we are building up a relationship with our characters and there is a lot of overall world-building. The one letdown was how this book was wrapped up. It just ended in the middle of a scene, or that is what it felt like for me at least. I like that even though a book is part of a series, it either ends on a cliffhanger that keeps us begging for the next book, or we get a rounded ending with some open ends that will leave you wondering if they get answered in the next installment. The ending leaves this book stranded at three cats.
Just another side note, I would not have picked this up based on the cover alone, I picked up the Witching Hour box set which contains 10 full-length witch books, I was just searching for something fun to read. The cover does not tell you anything. about what the story is about. It would not have been a trigger for me to pick it up. Luckily I am a sucker for boxsets on Amazon so it got my attention through that. I don't want to be rude, but I do want to tell you my honest opinion, and I hope that that will be appreciated.
