Review: Raven Dock by Sara Caldwell

Title: Raven Dock
Author: Sara Caldwell
Format: Paperback
Publisher: White Bird Publications
Publish Date: October 2, 2018
Source: Author

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "Seventeen-year-old Harper Duncan never fit in anywhere her family moved…and they moved a lot. But after her parents and brother die in a tragic accident, she finds out she’s adopted, and her birth mother lives in a remote retreat called Raven Dock. Harper ventures north and discovers a dark family secret: her birth mother is a witch. And she’s one too. As Harper Learns about her own hidden powers, will she choose to embrace her chilling heritage, or return to the safety of the ordinary world?"

My Two Cents:

"Raven Dock" is the story of Harper, a teenager who loses her family in a tragic accident. Harper thinks that she is all alone until her mysterious aunt reenters her life. Harper goes to live at remote Raven Dock where things are not always what they seem. Harper will uncover a lot of secrets of her own origins! This book is a promising start to a planned series but I wanted a little more detail.

The story line of this book is intriguing. I always like a good fish-out-of-water story and you definitely get that with Harper. She has absolutely no idea that her birth mother was a witch and that she may have powers herself. She didn't know about her aunt and had always thought that it was her immediate family that she had in the world. I also liked Raven Dock itself, a super mysterious place that added a good dose of atmosphere to the book.

In many ways, this book felt like an introduction and sort of an appetizer to a much larger story. It is a very short book and so I felt like there could have been room for more detail and more exploration of Harper's background and origin. I wanted a little more detail to go on. There are a lot of set ups for really interesting backstories into the witches and what it means for Harper that she is a descendant of witches. I wanted to know more about the legends behind it. It will be interesting to see where the story goes from here!