Good morning, Left Unread family!

It has been a while since I have dropped a book review but as always, I have been reading. So let's talk about a book.

Its actually funny that I just finally read Verity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire because, truthfully, I have had a copy here for quite a while now. I actually moderated a panel that included the author, Don Martin, last summer. But I was added to the panel pretty late in the game, so my review copy didn't arrive in time for me to read it before the event. But it has sat here waiting for me! So when my good friend, Dominique Burleson (@paperbacksandfrybread) told me that she was going to start it, I offered to buddy read right away.

So here are my thoughts!

This book was a really good time. The writing was beautiful, the characters memorable, their voices distinct and useful. I found it easy to love and hate these characters. More importantly, I found it easy to get to know them. And, as a whole, I found the premise of the story interesting and easy to engage with.

The story follows a young witch-in-training named Verity Vox. As a part of her training, Verity is traveling from place to place, gaining magical experience and helping as many people as she can. Basically, she is figuring out what it means to be a witch. So when she gets an urgent call for help, she doesn't hesitate to make her way to the small town of Foxfire, an isolated mining town filled with people who are very suspicious of strangers.

Verity quickly discovers that she is not the first magic user to make their way to foxfire. Years before her arrival, a traveling magician cursed the town and then vanished into the mountains, where he still resides, watching as their town falls apart from his evil magic.

Like I said above, I had a really good time with this story. Which I listened to on Libro. I don't read a ton of YA, but when I do, this is what I am looking for. I love a coming-of-age story where the main characters are already powerful and confident in their abilities. Which is absolutely the case with Verity. While she may be a witch-in-training, she has never encountered anything her magic couldn't handle. She is quick-witted, creative, confident, a strong personality and she knows exactly what she is capable of, which just so happens to be everything.

Disclaimer: There will be minor spoilers going forward. If you would rather enter the book without any foreknowledge, you may want to just grab your copy now and move on with your day. Here's a link and your final warning: https://bookshop.org/a/87137/9798890032706

I was fascinated by the way magic works in this world. Our main character, Verity, has an innate access to magic. She can create and manipulate it at will. And is, in fact, an expert at doing so. It comes so instinctual to her people that it is customary for them to spend a huge portion of their training completely on their own, without access to family, coven, or even their grimoire. Whereas our villain's magic is much more external. He has to rely on striking bargains and stealing from others.

The reason I found this so fascinating was because of the way it so perfectly ties into the nature of these characters. Without diving too deep into his motivations, our Villain has spent years stealing the innate magic from everyone and everything around him, building himself by chipping away at others. Whereas our hero is pulls from herself, sometimes even sacrificially, to undue that chipping away and to restore the people of Foxfire.

Throughout this entire story, there is a conversation being had about the power of community. About what can happen when we pull from ourselves to make our neighbors whole. And about the danger of transactional relationships. For the people of Foxfire, giving away a little of themselves was worth it if it turned into the resources and opportunities they needed to live a better life. But as they learned the hard way, that just isn't how things work. The only way forward is together. Always.

A lesson that Verity is learning as well. Because, while she loves to help people, a part of her motivation is wrapped up in her training. Helping the people of Foxfire gets her one step closer to being done with her training. Not to mention, their specific issue offered her an opportunity to test herself against another magic user. A unique challenge that she was very excited about. As the story progresses, she has to accept that no matter how much she gives, how hard she fights, or how much she sacrifices, this fight was always bigger than just her.

In Verity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire everyone was, first and foremost, human. We are dealing with a small, tight-knit community that has fallen prey to a monster, not because of that monster's power, but because of their very real human need. Long before the magician, the mining industry chewed them up and spit them out, leaving them facing financial instability that made them vulnerable to the first swindler who came to town. Now, they have lost everything, spiraling to fix problems that many of us worry about every day. Getting enough food on the table. Being productive enough at work. New clothes, a strong roof, a stable family. At the very core of this story, we are standing with real people as they suffer because they dared to believe there was a way out.

And for me, the thing I loved most about this story wasn't that Verity showed up to save the day. It was the fact that we are left with a beautiful answer to the central question of the book: Is there a way out?

Through community, the answer of this book is a resounding yes.

There are other things I took time to reflect on as I read, but this was the most impactful for me. I loved watching these characters learn to trust, love and rely on one another, and it brought me so much joy as they developed community and grew to understand that together, they could conquer anything.

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