I should have known to avoid this novel as soon as I read the title, but I did not. More fool me! The book blurb describes this as a fast read, but what it actually means is that it's not a novel - it's a short story with a cliffhanger ending. It's essentially a prologue to a series which I shall not read and for good reason. For example: you'd think in a short work like this, the author would recall what she wrote, but apparently not. At one point toward the end, I read, "It had been eight years - eight years of forcing herself to forget - but she had remembered one song." Nope! The author apparently forgot that she'd had the witch sing up a wind to try and save her stepfather's life. Now a handful of screens later, she's trying to recall what the song was? It wasn't eight years it was a couple of days! That's bad writing, right there.
Lilette is your usual trope special snowflake who is a witch as her mother is, but mom and dad are killed. Lilette believes it was her fault. Put to sea in a barrel(!), she eventually ends up on an island where the chief is a jerk. Lilette is protected by a kindly man until he dies and she, now fully grown, is left at the mercy of Bian, the tribal chief who wants her for his own. She tries to escape but her escape is thwarted. End of story - or rather, end of prologue. Now you have to buy the series to find out what happens next, but guess what? Lilette was such a boring damp rag of a character that I honestly don't care what happens to her. And this is why I don't read prologues. They're a waste of time as was this.
The book blurb makes this claim of Lilette: That she's the "most powerful witch ever born" Lie! She's a wuss who (as is typical in this type of story) hardly ever uses her magic and least of all when she actually needs it, as is evidenced by her being unable to magic her way out of that barrel, by her using a knife instead of magic to free herself from her initial capture, by failing to use the magic to stop people overtaking her sailboat as she tries to escape, and by failing again to use it to stop them retaking her prisoner. In short, she's the worst witch ever and her magic is quite evidently useless.
Another claim: "when her secret is revealed, the only thing that can save her is her song." Lie. It never saves her - not in this short story. Another claim: "It's time to rise up and become what she was always meant to be." Lie! She never does. Not in this short story. There's also the claim that this short story "will keep you bewitched long after you finish it." Lie! I did not like it and will forget it quickly. This novel was garbage and as is so often the case, the blurb lied like a dog.
