The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs by Katherine Howe
Last year, I read The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane when I was on my witch trials kick. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and what I loved even more was that Katherine Howe responded to my tweet about it letting me know that the second book would be coming out in June of 2019. The second it was available for pre-order, I ordered it, and the day it arrived was amazing. I re-read The Physick Book as a refresher, and then dove right in to The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs.
It has been ten years since Connie Goodwin saved her boyfriend, Sam, from the poison pushed on him by her teacher and mentor, Professor Manning Chilton, and she has pushed that part of her life out of her mind, ignoring her magical inheritance. But now she is pregnant, and that means that Sam's life is once again at risk, this time by the curse that has followed her ancestors for as far back as she can trace. It does not help that Connie is also up for tenure, mentoring graduate candidate, Zazi, and working on her first book. Connie reaches a breaking point when her previous protege, Thomas, continually hounds her for a recommendation and her apartment building catches fire. Everything is falling apart and Sam is too important for Connie to lose, and she must find a way to stop it. Turning to her heritage, she hopes that she can find something they did not.
In the overall picture of things, I liked the book. I really love the characters, both past and present. They all feel very wholesome and real. I can picture their lives in Cambridge and I honestly would not be surprised to run in to them on the street. I wonder if they are based off of real people that Howe knows. I was sort of hoping that Grace and Connie would be closer in this book. I thought between Connie realizing there was magic in the family and her mother moving back to the northeast that there would be a reconciliation between the two. Instead, Connie has seemed to ignore the magic and the relationship seems just as flimsy as before. But I can also see that happening in real life; I just expected more from them (even though they are fictional characters). I also feel that Connie sort of beat around the bush when it came to the problems between her and Sam, despite her telling the reader that she could not imagine a life without him. It was sort of just ignored, or the subject changed. These characteristics made Connie a slightly more annoying character this time around, but more in a way that family can annoy you.
The plot felt very similar to the plot of the first novel. Connie is buried in her research to save Sam from some paranormal threat. And I felt that the antagonist in this novel was very similar to the antagonist in The Physick Book, and for that reason, I feel like it was a cop out. Maybe it is the feminist in me, but I am a little tired of Connie saving a man because she loves him. Not that it is not a completely valid reason to save someone, but she could have saved anyone, maybe like her mother. I cannot speak for other readers, but I was under the impression that Sam was safe at the end of the last novel, and so having to save him again felt like rehashing the past.
While on that note, I do feel like the magic aspect in general is a bit ambiguous. Maybe I feel that way because ten years later and Connie still has not embraced it, so she does not really know what she is doing; or maybe it has to do with the form of practice changing over the centuries, going from full blown witchcraft to a more of a spiritual state of mind and helping others achieve peace. But I could not really understand the magic aspect of this book and it felt more thrown in than anything. And I still have my doubts if the final spell Connie did worked because it does not really discuss any backlash. When Temperance did the spell to save her husband, it resulted in the year without a summer. There is no discussion of how Connie's spell impacted anything. If there was no impact, one would have to wonder if it actually worked.
But at the end of the day, despite inconsistencies and unanswered questions, I still enjoyed the book. Katherine Howe is extremely historically accurate, has a distinct writing style, and has created characters that I would invite to my dinner of fictional characters.
Rating: 7/10
Author: Katherine Howe
Series: The Physick Book (Book 2 of 2)
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Paranormal
Dates Read: July 2-6, 2019
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| (Source: Kelsey Darling) |
In the overall picture of things, I liked the book. I really love the characters, both past and present. They all feel very wholesome and real. I can picture their lives in Cambridge and I honestly would not be surprised to run in to them on the street. I wonder if they are based off of real people that Howe knows. I was sort of hoping that Grace and Connie would be closer in this book. I thought between Connie realizing there was magic in the family and her mother moving back to the northeast that there would be a reconciliation between the two. Instead, Connie has seemed to ignore the magic and the relationship seems just as flimsy as before. But I can also see that happening in real life; I just expected more from them (even though they are fictional characters). I also feel that Connie sort of beat around the bush when it came to the problems between her and Sam, despite her telling the reader that she could not imagine a life without him. It was sort of just ignored, or the subject changed. These characteristics made Connie a slightly more annoying character this time around, but more in a way that family can annoy you.
 |
| (Source: Giphy) |
While on that note, I do feel like the magic aspect in general is a bit ambiguous. Maybe I feel that way because ten years later and Connie still has not embraced it, so she does not really know what she is doing; or maybe it has to do with the form of practice changing over the centuries, going from full blown witchcraft to a more of a spiritual state of mind and helping others achieve peace. But I could not really understand the magic aspect of this book and it felt more thrown in than anything. And I still have my doubts if the final spell Connie did worked because it does not really discuss any backlash. When Temperance did the spell to save her husband, it resulted in the year without a summer. There is no discussion of how Connie's spell impacted anything. If there was no impact, one would have to wonder if it actually worked.
 |
| (Source: Giphy) |
Rating: 7/10
Author: Katherine Howe
Series: The Physick Book (Book 2 of 2)
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Paranormal
Dates Read: July 2-6, 2019
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