“… you can’t stop yourself from taking another bite…and another…and another…I didn’t want to stop reading…. Kudos!”

R.A. Salvatore
New York Times Bestselling Author

“Excellent book. I am impressed by the creativity and the depth of the world building. Dave Butler is a great storyteller.”

Larry Correia 

“Witchy Eye is an intricate and imaginative alternate history with a cast of characters and quirky situations that would make a Dickens novel proud.”

“… In WITCHY EYE, we’re given alternate history, fantasy, and alternate mythology thrown into a blender and oven that results in a cake that is deliciously off-balance, one that tastes different, but in a way that you can’t stop yourself from taking another bite…and another…and another…I didn’t want to stop reading…. Kudos!” 

R.A. Salvatore, NYT Bestselling author of more than 20 million books sold worldwide

 “…Impressed by the creativity and the depth of the world building. Dave Butler is a great storyteller.” – Larry Correia

“WITCHY EYE is an intricate and imaginative alternate history with a cast of characters and quirky situations that would make a Dickens novel proud.”

Kevin J. Anderson, NYT bestselling author of Eternity’s Mind

“David’s a pro storyteller, and you’re in for a great ride.”

Larry Dixon

“…Butler manages to mash up early American history and epic fantasy in a fascinating, grittily-flavored world of living legends.”

Cat Rambo, author of Beasts of Tabat

“Enchanting! I’d love to see more.”

Mercedes Lackey NYT bestselling author of the Heralds of Valdemar series

“Goblin Market meets Magical Musketpunk, all woven into the tapestry of an epoch-spanning Colonial mashup.  A great ride that also manages to cover some serious cultural terrain.” —Charles E. Gannon, author of the thrice-Nebula nominated Caine Riordan series

Kevin J. Anderson
New York Times bestselling author of Eternity’s Mind

“… a fascinating, grittily-flavored world of living legends. Hurry up and write the next one, Dave.”

Cat Rambo
author of Beasts of Tabat

“This is enchanting! I’d love to see more.”

Mercedes Lackey 
New York Times bestselling author

“This is enchanting! I’d love to see more.”

Mercedes Lackey 
New York Times bestselling author

“Goblin Market meets Magical Musketpunk… A great ride that also manages to cover some serious cultural terrain.”

Charles E. Gannon
author of the thrice-Nebula nominated Caine Riordan series

“Witchy-Eye is a brilliant blend of historical acumen and imagination, a tour-de-force that is at once full of surprises and ultimately heart-warming. This is your chance to discover one of the finest new stars writing today!”

David Farland
New York Times bestselling author

“A gritty, engrossing mash-up of history, fantasy, and magic. Desperate characters careen from plot twist to plot twist until few are left standing.”

Mario Acevedo
author of Rescue From Planet Pleasure.

“Captivating characters. Superb world-building. Awesome magic. Butler fuses fantasy and history effortlessly, creating a fascinating new American epic. Not to be missed!”

Christopher Husberg
author

“Butler’s fantasy is by turns sardonic and lighthearted; the story will appeal to fantasy readers of all stripes.”

In an alternate North America where magic is pervasive and the Appalachians are under the boot of Emperor Thomas Penn, 15-year-old Sarah Calhoun, youngest daughter of imperial war hero Iron Andy Calhoun, is content with her rural Tennessee tobacco-farming life, in which she gets to cast the occasional small spell. She’s mostly come to terms with having a “witchy eye” that’s been swollen shut since birth. When the priest Thalanes, an acquaintance of Andy’s, arrives and helps to reveal that Sarah is not a Calhoun daughter but carries royal blood—and is being hunted by humans and magical entities in the service of the emperor—she flees with the priest and her smitten, protective cousin, Calvin, to find help in low and exalted places, reclaim her heritage, and discover what she’s capable of when her eye finally opens. Butler’s fantasy is by turns sardonic and lighthearted; ghoulish shadows claw into the most remote areas and heroism bursts out of the most unlikely people. Sarah is the epitome of the downtrodden hero who refuses to give up until she gets what she needs, and her story will appeal to fantasy readers of all stripes. (Mar.)

http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-4767-8211-9

PW Starred Review

WITCHY EYE, D.J. Butler’s major-publisher debut, is dense and packed full of ideas, but it all fits together seamlessly. It’s a wild quest fantasy, but it layers in complex political intrigue, innovative magic systems, and a warped, slightly more inclusive alternate history as it speeds along. It might sound overwhelming, but the deep world design and unforgettable characters make it go down easy, a fast-moving and intriguing read, titanic scale and epic scope aside.

Butler’s worldbuilding is truly special. This is an ambitious book, sketching out numerous political, religious, and cultural systems for every region the characters travel through. The background for the area is one steeped in myth both based in American history and completely fabricated, with beastmen, wild gods, the founding fathers, magical artifacts, and the Mississippi River as the source of powerful magic. Magic in this world is similarly diverse, blending hexing, voodoo, and latin phrases that require mages to draw power from ley lines through focus amulets. It speaks to how deep and dense the world is that every character has their own understanding of how the world works, filtered through the systems available to them. The depth and density also makes the world feel incredibly vast—a day’s journey can take them through several exotic, fully realized locales.

A world full of such dense beliefs, legends, and laws would of course be incomplete without larger-than-life characters, and here, too, Butler excels, building up a memorable cast through point-of-view chapters, dialogue, snippets of stories, and offhand comments, building them up even before they appear on the page, even granting each their own unique vernacular.

Flintlock fantasy isn’t a genre that often leaps into epic scope, so when it does, that’s ambitious enough on its own. What makes Witchy Eye even better is that D.J. Butler goes beyond, and gets so much right in the process. This is a breathtaking heroic saga that pays off in a really satisfying way. Between a world so deep you could get lost in it and a massive, distinct cast, Witchy Eye seems poised to bring Butler’s work to a wider audience (his other popular series, The Remaining, was initially self-published). With a book like this one, it’s an audience he definitely deserves.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/witchy-eye-flintlock-fantasy-different-breed/

A stunning debut fantasy from D.J. Butler which presents an alternate history for North America, where Appalachian folk magic has shaped the landscape and society. Appalachee fifteen-year-old Sarah Calhoun finds she has a natural talent for hexing and one bad eye. All she wants is to be left alone—especially by outsiders. But Sarah’s fate calls, and a quest for her destiny leads her across an American landscape strangely transformed, with a trip to the Renaissance-style Nashville Tobacco Fair, an encounter with not-quite-human Firstborn Moundbuilders, and desperate fights with shapeshifting Mockers and undead Lazars. All of this leads to a final confrontation with the Emperor of the New World and Sarah’s hidden destiny.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/96-books-sci-fi-fantasy-editors-cant-wait-for-you-to-read-in-2017/