The Wonderful Discovery of Elizabeth Sawyer - Jonathan Vischer - ★

AUTHOR: Jonathan Vischer

GENRE: Historical Fiction

PUBLICATION DATE: September 25, 2022

RATING: 1 star.

In a Nutshell: Such amazing potential, such shoddy execution! ☹

Plot Preview:

1621. An old lady named Elizabeth Sawyer has been imprisoned on charges of being a witch. A few days before her schedule execution, prison chaplain Henry Goodcole comes for her final confession, hoping to see some guilt and regret in her behaviour. On the contrary, Elizabeth is as defiant as ever, and instead of atoning for her “sins”, she proceeds to narrate three anecdotes from her life, which end up making Henry question what he has been told about her.

The story comes to us partly in Henry’s third-person perspective and partly in Elizabeth’s first-person POV when she is narrating her life stories to Henry.

Bookish Yays:

🔮 The blurb – shows the actual potential of the plot.

🔮 No ‘kitchen sink clutter’, despite being a debut work.

🔮 The depiction of the horrendous treatment meted out to women by the historical religious under the fake pretexts of witchery and deals with the Devil.

Bookish Nays:

🧹 The execution of that blurb into this novel – Yikes! The plot development needed a lot of refinement.

🧹 The characters, including the titular Elizabeth who could have been so powerful a protagonist – underdeveloped and boring.

🧹 Pet Peeve: I hate it when a piece of writing is declared to be of a specific format (such as a diary, a spoken confession, a letter, a newspaper article,…) but doesn’t go on to match the same in tone. In this case, Elizabeth’s three stories feel more like a novel, complete with back-and-forth conversations, than like a verbal narration of her life. Moreover, none of those three episodes sound like anecdotes or personal narratives. The tone and content both are totally off.

🧹 The pacing – slower than a snail for most of the way.

🧹 The dialogues – so artificial in tone and so flat in delivery! They never feel like actual speech but like theatrical proclamations.

🧹 The vocabulary – While I usually enjoy finding tougher words in fictional novels, the language in this book feels somewhat awkward, as if big words have been used just for the sake of it.

🧹 The awkward use of the biblical content. Most of the religious lines appear shoved in than as a genuine part of the narrative. Considering that a holier-than-thou chaplain was at the centre of the events and even Elizabeth Sawyer is well-aware of religious verses, this content should have felt like a more natural fit into the plot.

🧹 The atmosphere was barely palpable. I saw the names of the places but the vibe just wasn’t there.

🧹 The ending – after so much struggle, I sure would have preferred a more satisfying conclusion to the book.

🧹 The blurb says that this is based on a true story. What the facts could be is anyone’s guess because there’s absolutely no note detailing the real-life inspiration.

In short, a disappointing novel for me from start to end. Maybe I would have enjoyed it better had Elizabeth’s POV not been presented as a confession. Her life story coming through her perspective could have been more captivating.

A strong no from me. But maybe you might still be like to give it a go, based on the concept of the story. After all, no two readers read the same book. If you do, I hope you enjoy it more.

My thanks to The Book Guild for providing the DRC of “The Wonderful Discovery of Elizabeth Sawyer” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn’t work out better.