I’d like to apologise for the rude pun in my title, but I couldn’t resist. A Witch’s Guide to Freeing a Minotaur, which henceforth shall be referred to as Minotaur, is a spicy little read. The bull refers to the titular minotaur, and I’m sure you can guess the rest. I did have a little wobble as to whether I was reading bestiality, but Quest deals well with the morality of a human woman having sex with a humanised bull. I shouldn’t think any cattle farmers need worry about lusty readers.
The rest of the story is firmly in cosy fantasy territory, and it is a delight to read. It will also resonate with many readers as it has a central theme of gifted children becoming burnt-out adults. I immediately identified with Ava and wanted her to succeed.
Ava has inherited a house from her aunt, but can only keep it if she passes the First Witch test. As she’s burnt out with barely any magic, that seems unlikely to happen. Motivation comes in the form of Kal the Minotaur, who the aunt has bound to the house. He needs freeing, and Ava needs to keep away from her horrid mother. Creating a magical artifact to free Kal will also mean she passes the test. And so the novel is set up.
The minotaur doesn’t have any magic, but he is good at sitting in the house library with his glasses on. I swear I saw som artwork that proved my suspicion that these would be slutty little glasses, à la Jonathan Bailey. II cannot find the picture now. Anyway, intelligence plus muscles has Ava falling fast, but there’s a small problem. Kal is approaching mating season, which means very rough, possessive sex. There’s a lot of angst here around issues of consent, which was possibly the sexiest part of the novel for me. It’s such a positive portrayal of non-toxic masculinity, coupled with Ava never being shamed for having healthy appetites.
For a fantasy novel, there’s a lot of normal average human experiences. For example, Ava gets sweaty on long walks. On the surface, this doens’t seem that ground-breaking, but when was the last time you read a novel where the heroine sweated? It sometimes happens to male characters in steamy sex scenes, but women don’t sweat. I appreciated this level of realism. It helped me connect with Ava. I also enjoyed her treating her magical burn-out by slowing adding in little magical activities each day. I have Crohn’s Disease and this is exactly how I get back on my feet. Not with magic, obviously, but by slowly building up my daily activities. I don’t know anything about Quest’s personal health, but she nailed this depiction of chronic illness.
I’m giving this 4.5 stars out of 5. I’ve deducted half a star because of some unexpected strong language which was not to my taste. Apologies to the author for this. I hope we return to the town of Sunvale because the supporting characters in Minotaur have stories to tell. I think this novel would work well as a series of interconnected stand-alones.
