It's easy to tell the author is very passionate about this subject. Unfortunately, passion does not equal a good reading experience. From the start, the writing is very inaccessible; it is very history heavy and reads like a textbook. The author repeats herself a lot, inputs unnecessary quotes, and jumps from topic to topic in a way that makes no sense. From what you can plant your herbs in, to city foraging, to the history of buttercup, to the definition of an herb with certain medicinal herb uses sprinkled in, all within 5 pages. Despite the title, this book doesn't seem very heavy on modern witchcraft/neo-paganism; it's more about historic folk magic. Another issue I had was the author seemed to have a negative view on modern medicine. In one section she states: "if they [herbs] are combined with the modern penchant for pharmaceutical drugs, there can be potentially fatal consequences. It is actually the pharmaceutical drugs that are dangerous" The 3rd chapter was my favorite as it was a list of herbs with how to make simples their uses, and some background history. This part felt more organized and polished than the rest of the book and makes for great reference. Overall, I would not recommend this to modern witches unless they love academia and history.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.