Abandoned by Booklikes

So this wasn't a bad book, I just had a hard time sticking with it. The writing at times pushed me out of the story and the book starts to feel really predictable after a while. I loved the cover, and loved the idea of vine witches though. I just don't know if I would read the next book in this series or not.

"The Vine Witch" starts off with a woman named Elena Boureanu finally breaks a curse that has kept her hibernated (or whatever you want to call it as a frog) for 7 years until she manages to put herself back together as a human. I have to say that the description of this turned my stomach a bit. As soon as Elena realizes what has happened and someone must have cursed her, she's off for vengeance. From there we have Elena running back to confront her former fiancee (Bastien Du Monde) and the new owner of the Chateau she used to own (Jean-Paul). 

So Elena is a vine witch which is a person that is able to become one with a vineyard. Yeah I don't know guys, I was just as surprised as you were. I thought maybe she be into like vines that were more sinister or something. Elena is able to communicate with vines, bugs, birds, and the soil in which the vines are planted. She becomes important to Jean-Paul though since the vineyard is failing and he doesn't know why. 

I think that there's not a lot here though. This all seemed interesting but Elena fell flat to me. I think because for me it was obvious who the big bad was and I got bored waiting for Elena to catch on. Jean-Paul did nothing for me. I am sure that Smith wrote this as two opposites attracting (Jean-Paul is all science is the answer!) but I just got bored by both of them. 

The writing was interesting when focusing on the vine witch aspects of it, but the murder mystery and all of that didn't engage me at all. And of course it didn't help that Elena is the one who everyone thinks is the killer. Apparently you break a curse and you are no longer a frog and your life can somehow get worse. 

The ending was pretty formulaic I thought, no surprises.