Sweet and Bitter Magic plot summary
Tamsin, cursed never to feel love, gets by fixing problems for people in the nearby village – for a strange fee. It’s a waste of her enormous magical talent, but it’s all that’s left to her since she was exiled by the coven. At least until a cursed plague starts to sweep the land and Wren shows up on her doorstep. The plague has put her father at risk, and she’s prepared to do anything to save him. Even team up with a witch. Even if the price is her love for her father.
My thoughts on Sweet and Bitter Magic
Sweet and Bitter Magic, by Adrienne Tooley, is a YA fantasy. It follows two POV protagonists, Tamsin and Wren, who are kind of archetypal opposites.
Tamsin is the cynical, self-interested one, Wren is the sweet, open-hearted one. The two have to team up to counter a magical plague sweeping the land, working together to track down its origin.
I actually discussed Sweet and Bitter magic on The Island Library podcast, if you’re interested in hearing what I had to say!
The book’s main focus is on the relationship between the two main characters
Wren’s mother is dead, so she lives with her dad. She had a younger sibling who died in a magical incident, leaving both of her parents deeply suspicious about magic. As a result, she’s never told her father she’s a Source.
Sources are essentially made of magic, although they can’t use it themselves. They’re supposed to train with the witches as soon as they discover their power, but Wren has kept quiet so she can stay with her father – who is painted as emotionally manipulative. He tells her all the time that he’d die without her, she feels like she can’t cut her hair because he likes to tell her it looks just like her mum’s. She wants to explore the world and learn more about herself but feels trapped. And she resents that, even though she loves him and wants to take care of him. I found that dynamic interesting, although I wish the author had explored it further.
Tamsin is an intensely powerful witch, living alone and in exile. Her curse means the only way she can experience love is stealing it from others. She accepts love as payment for spells; taking the love of a parent for their child, a woman’s love for her husband, or a scared girl’s love for her father. Her inability to feel love shows up in some interesting ways. It didn’t feel totally consistent throughout the story, but made for an interesting set-up for sure.
Tamsin and Wren’s relationship, as they come to trust and care about each other, was definitely the focal point of the story. I liked the chemistry between them. There were also moments where I felt like we were being told about conversations and developments in their relationship where we could have seen it for ourselves.
There was a lot of great set-up in Sweet and Bitter Magic
The author laid some great groundwork for character arcs for both of the protagonists. I was excited to see Wren grow in confidence and learn to trust and fight for what she wants. I was curious to see how Tamsin would change and grow while struggling with her guilt and inability to love.
Both characters did change by the end of the story, but the character development across the plot felt a bit flat. I didn’t feel like there was pay-off equal to the set-up in either case. That’s not to say the character arcs were bad – they were fine. I think the premise was so interesting it actually overshadowed the perfectly competent character growth that followed.
There were other things like this in the book; things that were set-up well and not paid off. Moments you expected to be a big deal that weren’t. Nothing disastrous! And it only bothered me in each instance because I was so interested in the set-up.
There were some elements of Sweet and Bitter Magic’s worldbuilding that I enjoyed, but some of it felt a bit thin
The setting for Sweet and Bitter Magic felt like fairly standard European fairytale fantasy. A little village with a local witch, a grudging acceptance of magic.
It’s a standalone, and not a long book, so I understand there not being much room for worldbuilding. Even so, there were things I’d like to have known more about. When we find out there’s a plague spreading across the land, I wasn’t sure how imminent the threat was. People seemed to be fleeing, but I wasn’t sure where they might be fleeing to, or how safe they could reasonably expect to be there. For the people who stayed behind, I couldn’t tell whether they were expecting the plague to arrive in hours, days or weeks. I didn’t get a sense of how many people might be at risk if the plague wasn’t stopped, or how many might have already fallen victim.
None of this mattered an awful lot, particularly once Tamsin and Wren set off on their journey. It just made it difficult for me to grasp the stakes early on.
Wren’s being a Source, and the fact that she can sense magic, was interesting. It played into the plot in some neat ways, as well as offering cool moments where she could see or respond to magic. But then we get to the witch lands and… nothing. No sense of how it feels different to the outside world.
I also would have liked to know more about how the magic works. There was an indication of magic taking some toll on the user, of some sort of price that Tamsin was having to pay. But it was vague, and we didn’t get a clear sense of the limitations of magic in this world. I don’t need every fantasy to have a hard magic system – far from it! But I think outlining some limitations and sticking to them makes magic a more interesting component of a story.
On balance, I liked Sweet and Bitter Magic
The plot was fine, it was a reasonably short read and good fun while it lasted. Despite leaning a little more on telling rather than showing, I thought the romance between the main characters came across nicely. And who doesn’t love a sapphic witch story?
I also respect the fact that it’s a standalone! This seems to be a bit of a dying breed in fantasy, but it’s nice to be able to jump into a book without feeling like you’re committing to 800+ pages down the line.
A sweet and easy read, I’d recommend it if you’re after YA romance with a magical background.
You may also like:
Strange the Dreamer Book Review
The Cursebreaker Trilogy Review
When I saw this pop up, I was instantly reminded of the episode. But I loved hearing (well, reading) your thoughts again on this and the dynamics of the characters