Can you tell that I absolutely LOVE doing blog tours? No? Oh okay.

Thank you so much to Fantastic Flying Book Club for hosting this amazing blog tour for A Treason of Thorns by Laura E. Weymouth! Be sure to click on the banner above to see the full tour and all of its stops. We have a lot of awesome bloggers on this tour, so I highly recommend checking out all the posts.

Violet Sterling has spent the last seven years in exile, longing to return to Burleigh House. One of the six great houses of England, Burleigh’s magic always kept the countryside well. And as a child, this magic kept Violet happy, draping her in flowers while she slept, fashioning secret hiding places for her, and lighting fires on the coldest nights to keep her warm.

Everything shattered, though, when her father committed high treason trying to free Burleigh from the king’s oppressive control. He was killed, and Vi was forced into hiding.

When she’s given a chance to go back, she discovers Burleigh has run wild with grief. Vines and briars are crumbling the walls. Magic that once enriched the surrounding countryside has turned dark and deadly, twisting lush blooms into thorns, poisoning livestock and destroying crops. Burleigh’s very soul is crying out in pain.

Vi would do anything to help, and soon she finds herself walking the same deadly path as her father all those years before. Vi must decide how far she’s willing to go to save her house—before her house destroys everything she’s ever known.

Content warnings are available via the author’s website.

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Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Fantastic Flying Book Club, and HarperTeen for this free copy. All quotes in this review are taken from the Advanced Reader Copy and may change in final publication.

Anxiety, Emotional & Physical Abuse (non-graphic),
Gaslighting, Mild Body Horror

Okay whoa. This got super creepy, and I kind of liked that? I wasn’t expecting it, although I guess I should have from a bit of what the synopsis said. I don’t think I was prepared for certain magical aspects to hit me right away though, which really made things interesting and pull me in from the beginning.

Poor old House – it hates to see me unhappy just as much as Wyn does.

Vi’s observations of Burleigh

I know when I started this book, I just was so… entranced by the idea of a house having such a connection with a person, a family. I know I have been in a fantasy kick lately, and this is another one of those that has magical realism in the real world (England, to be exact), so I guess I should have expected it, but the way that Vi talks about Burleigh seriously makes me feel like there’s a soul in this house. The house is its own entity and has a mind of its own. It does things on its own and has human emotions. It’s almost creepy, but very interesting.

Well it’s not the only house that can do this.

Blood for a beginning
Mortar for an end
Speak out your binding,
Be you foe or friend

Take up the deed
Take it well in hand
a bind a House's power
Bind it to the land

Blood for an ending
Mortar for a start
Unmake a binding
At your House's heart

Unleash a House's power
Let it all run free
Leave naught for the king
Naught for you or me

First House for a prison
Second for ladies' rest
Third for a palace
Fourth to be blessed

Fifth House holds quicksilver
The Sixth ruins all
But for blood in its mortar
But for breath in its walls

I couldn’t imagine being exiled from my home for nine years, especially after finding out that my father was accused of treason. Whatever that was, and then not knowing whether he and my childhood friend – who came to the house under suspicious circumstances really – were alive or not because they were put under House arrest. How could Vi live like that for nine whole years, and not have the comfort that Burleigh brought her, with all its magic and wonder? It’s just amazing that she even lasted as long as she did.

It is a wicked punishment, House arrest, designed to torment both a Caretaker and the Great House they tend. If found guilty of treason, a Caretaker is stripped of the key that allows him to channel the House’s magic safely, and restricted to the grounds.

House arrest

And how could Vi feel such a strong pull towards Burleigh, when a House can be forced to kill its treasonous Caretaker? Even if the treason wasn’t real? I can’t tell you if he really was guilty or not, but he was put under House arrest for it, so clearly someone thought he was guilty.

Yeah, this book was super interesting. You’ll have to read it for yourself to see what I mean, because I don’t think I could have really imagined England quite like this. I mean, maybe now that I read this, but it makes me wonder how other lands would have fared with they had Great Houses like these. What it really means to be a Caretaker, and how far you’d be willing to go to put the House first.

I think I only chose a few for this one because it was kind of hard for me to pick the perfect house to portray Burleigh. I wish I could though, because Burleigh is definitely a character in and of itself, and I think Weymouth did an amazing job with that.

“I will never change my mind,” I tell Wyn. “I’ll put Burleigh first all my life, because this place is greater than you or me or any one person.”

When the king sentenced my father to House arrest, it took six men to hold Jed back.

Mira does rule us with a bit of an iron fist, but Jed and I would be lost without her.

Don’t forget to enter in the giveaway by clicking on the banner! Fantastic Flying Book Club always has a giveaway associated with their blog tours, and I honestly can’t wait to see who ends up winning. I hope you guys enjoyed my stop. I know it was shorter than usual, but alas I am still pretty sick and wasn’t up to my higher expectations this time.

Thanks so much for your support, fam!