What starts out as a very cool premise full of interesting (and often twisted) characters turns into a tale of underdeveloped ones. The idea of the witch soon dissolves into a repetitive tedium and the author's style relies too heavily upon a gross abundance of allusions, similes, & metaphors that cannot be ignored. 
 In this age, with the rampant necessity of self publishing, there was a blatant need of editing that seemed overlooked. Errors of grammar/punctuation/spelling were continual--not all to be blamed on the author--but on the process of self publishing. Be this as it may, the errors were enough to distract me from the story & reminded me that I was indeed reading (instead of allowing me to remain lost in the author's storytelling). 
 I will give Vernon another try because he has some true storytelling potential.