Review: When My Heart Was Wicked by Tricia Sterling

Title: When My Heart Was Wicked

Author: Tricia Sterling

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Publishing Date: February 24th, 2015

Pages: 192

Genre: Young Adult Paranormal

Series:  Standalone

Source: Kindle
 

"I used to be one of those girls. The kind who loved to deliver bad news. When I colored my hair, I imagined it seeping into my scalp, black dye pooling into my veins.
But that was the old Lacy. Now, when I cast spells, they are always for good."
16-year-old Lacy believes that magic and science can work side by side. She's a botanist who knows how to harness the healing power of plants. So when her father dies, Lacy tries to stay with her step-mother in Chico, where her magic is good and healing. She fears the darkness that her real mother, Cheyenne, brings out, stripping away everything that is light and kind.
Yet Cheyenne never stays away for long. Beautiful, bewitching, unstable Cheyenne who will stop at nothing, not even black magic, to keep control of her daughter's heart. She forces Lacy to accompany her to Sacramento, and before long, the "old" Lacy starts to resurface.
But when Lacy survives a traumatic encounter, she finds herself faced with a choice. Will she use her powers to exact revenge and spiral into the darkness forever? Or will she find the strength to embrace the light?

When My Heart Was Wicked is about 16 year old Lacy, who is forced to go live with her biological mother after her father dies. While she is with her mother she rediscovers her magic.

What made me pick this book up: 

This is one of those that have been on my tbr for a while. Honestly I picked it up because of the cover. It was so alluring and dark and beautiful

What did I like about the cover: 

Uh yeah, what don't I like about the cover? It's beautiful, dark, and alluring. Oh wait, I already said that. Okay a little more detail.. I love the pops of color, and the birds flying out of her hair. It just screams, witches, magic, darkness.

What made me read this book: 

Like I said, the cover made me pick it up, but when I read the synopsis I just knew I had to read it. I found it on the kindle, and I got so excited to read it, it's the first book I read once I picked my kindle up in almost 6 months

What did I like the most: 

I really liked her step mom, Anna. She was so light, and fun. She made everything seem interesting, she was a vegetarian and she loved all things nature, and fairies, and organic. I'm kind of jealous I'm not more like her. I also really liked how the author told the story, it was beautifully done. The details in it are just amazing. She described everything and I could just picture myself there. 

What didn't I like: 

Okay, this is where I have some troubles. I rated the book the way I did, because of the story telling itself and because of the imagery. 
But what actually happened in the book, seemed very rushed and anti climactic. 
I did not at all feel like the ending matched the rest of the book. It's almost as if the author started to tell one story, then decided to end it with another story that she already had. The ending itself, like I said was so anti climactic. Let me do this and then, all of the sudden, everything is right with the world. The synopsis says that something traumatic happens and the main character has to make a decision. I feel like that is so not accurate at all, to what happened in the book. I won't give any spoilers, but I was expecting something dark, magical, mysterious, and I barely got any of that. Just something that started magical and beautiful and ended.. really flat. I gave it three stars purely because of the imagery used.

Overall I am so disappointed with this book. I was expecting so much more, I was expecting to be enticed. And I simply wasn't.

A Little Snippit

“The struggle to leave the cocoon is what strengthens the butterfly’s wings so she can fly. I am about to become something beautiful.”― Tricia Stirling, When My Heart Was Wicked

Tricia Stirling is a writer and facilitator of global awesomeness. You're awesome. So are you. She lives and writes in Sacramento, California with her husband and two children and a dog named Teddy Bear. She did not pick the name for the dog.