I have to be honest, I thought this was going to be a kids' book, but I was wrong. The very start of the book is odd, because the protagonist is in the body of a toad who as to eat it's own shedded skin in order to defeat the magic that has cursed it.
The blurb says:
A young witch emerges from a curse to find her world upended in this gripping fantasy set in turn-of-the-century France.
For centuries, the vineyards at Château Renard have depended on the talent of their vine witches, whose spells help create the world-renowned wine of the Chanceaux Valley. Then the skill of divining harvests fell into ruin when sorcière Elena Boureanu was blindsided by a curse. Now, after breaking the spell that confined her to the shallows of a marshland and weakened her magic, Elena is struggling to return to her former life. And the vineyard she was destined to inherit is now in the possession of a handsome stranger.
Vigneron Jean-Paul Martel naively favors science over superstition, and he certainly doesn’t endorse the locals’ belief in witches. But Elena knows a hex when she sees one, and the vineyard is covered in them. To stay on and help the vines recover, she’ll have to hide her true identity, along with her plans for revenge against whoever stole seven winters of her life. And she won’t rest until she can defy the evil powers that are still a threat to herself, Jean-Paul, and the ancient vine-witch legacy in the rolling hills of the Chanceaux Valley.
I did enjoy this book. It is written really well, and though I wouldn't say I'm particularly interested in historical France, nor wine-making, nor even this type of fantasy (modern fairy tales), it kept my interest, and I wanted to know what happened next. There is even a twist at the end of the book that I didn't see coming.
This book is the start of a series, but I read and enjoyed it as a standalone.
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