**Disclaimer: I received an Advanced Reader Copy from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way impacted my review.**
Trigger Warning: Abuse, Discrimination, Torture Mention, Suicide Mention, Murder Mention
Abomination. Curse. Murderer. All names hurled at eighteen-year-old Seraphina Dovetail. As the seventh-born daughter to a witch, she’s the cause of her mother losing her powers and, in turn, her life.
Abandoned as a child, Sera dreams of becoming an inspector and finding her family. To do that, she must be referred into the Advanced Studies Program at the Aetherium’s Witchling Academy. Her birth order, quick temper, and tendency to set things on fire, however, have left her an outcast with failing marks…and just what Professor Nikolai Barrington is looking for.
The tall, brooding, yet exceedingly handsome young professor makes her a proposition: become his assistant and he’ll give her the referral she needs. Sera is quickly thrust into a world where witches are being kidnapped, bodies are raised from the dead, and someone is burning seventhborns alive. As Sera and Barrington grow ever closer, she’ll discover that some secrets are best left buried…and fire isn’t the only thing that makes a witch burn.
Publication Date: September 04, 2018.
I was immediately drawn to Seventh Born. I watched a movie when I was younger where the main character in said movie had powers because he was the seventh born of a seventh born. And the reason why this main character had powers was simply because he was the seventh born. What I’m saying is that ever since then I’ve had a thing for stories that have anything to do with a seventh born child.
So I had incredibly high hopes for Seventh Born.
What had me laughing early on was the attraction that Sera had towards one of the Professors that work at her school. And of course, reading the story unveiled that Professor Nik Barrington was only 25! My initial thoughts that Barrington would be a bad character proved to be false — he’s actually a pretty decent guy. Between the two sparks an extremely slow-burn romance.
Within Seventh Born there’s a lot of discrimination and prejudices that Sera faces — and she struggles with this literally everyday. It’s more than daily though. No, at any moment in any given day people are bullying her.
The pace of this story is perfect. It’s fast enough where the story doesn’t dily-daly on what day it is.
The atmosphere in this book is great and I really enjoyed how easily I could fall into the story. Which was kind of surprising! Seventh Born reads like a High Fantasy Historical. Historical in the fact that the girls/woman are expected to wear dresses and such. I actually don’t know if females are allowed to wear pants since the story makes it prevalent that Sera wears a lot of dresses. This is a thing for me because I typically stay away from any book related to, or based on, historical fantasy.
Another thing that I enjoyed quite a bit was the magical action. I ended up holding my breathe, making sure that the characters were all right. There’s actually a bit of a crime-mystery theme going on in this book. I was pleasantly surprised by that.
What surprised me most about this novel was the fact that I enjoyed it. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to like Seventh Born. Yet I started reading this book expecting not to like this one.
Something else that surprised me was that whenI expected to be at nearing the end of the book, I checked to see what percentage I was at, and I was only just over 52%! So there’s a lot packed into this novel. And for the rest of the novel I ended up checking what percentage I was at, because there were so many points in the novel where the story could have ended and it just…didn’t. The story kept on going! And that’s a great thing about this novel.
Rarely does a book make me want to cry with the main character, as this book did.
The ending parts to this novel bring such a sad tenderness to my heart. There are so many different layers of what happened—and what didn’t happen— that I kind of feel upset about it all. I want to cry at the injustice of everything. While there’s a finality to the story, there’s still so much that we don’t know concerning Sera. Hopefully that will be covered in the next book!
I give Seventh Born, 4 stars.
Speaking of the next book, I am eagerly anticipating its arrival!
Happy Reading!
— Adele
Adele Is Reading 
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