The Familiars, by Stacey Halls. Mira, 2019

It’s 1612, in the reign of King James I, and Fleetwood Shuttleworth (a real historic person) has not had an easy life. She’s 17 and enduring her 4^th pregnancy, the first three having ended in miscarriages and a still birth. She’s found a letter from a doctor to her husband saying that she will not survive another pregnancy. Her first husband, who she was married to at age 4, molested her. She’s never had a friend in her life.



By accident, she meets Alice Grey, a poor young woman who knows herbs and midwifery. Fleetwood becomes convinced that Alice is her only hope of surviving the coming birth, and ending with a live baby. But her husband’s best friend, Roger Nowell, is investigating witches (the Pendle Hill witches, to be exact), and his eye is on Alice. Convicting some witches would give Roger brownie points with the king, and enrich his retirement. In time, Fleetwood finds herself regarding Alice as a friend. She’s willing to go to any lengths to save her from being hung.



The pace is very, very slow in the first half, and then speeds up dramatically. There are several threads running through this novel, some of which don’t come to light until well into the story. Fleet herself starts out as rather a boring character- immature, naïve, and uneducated- who matures and grows through the story. At the start, she has no idea how the ‘other half’ lives, and is shocked at the conditions that exist outside her manor house. But she learns fast. I give five stars for atmosphere; the descriptions of the forests, people, villages, and homes are wonderful. While I loved Alice, the characters I was less taken with. I disliked Fleetwood’s husband a great deal, even at the end when all the threads are tied off. In the end, I give it four stars. This is Hall’s first novel; I assume her writing will mature and I will give any second book she writes a try.

A Secret History of Witches, by Louisa Morgan. Redhook, 2017

Starting in Brittany in 1821, this is the history of one family of witches, the Orchieres. They are Romani, and therefore automatically suspect whenever someone wants to persecute a witch. Which is why one night Grand-mere Ursule gives her life to hide the family from a witch hunting priestI, telling them to flee across the channel to Cornwall, taking the family’s two treasures: the grimoire, and the large crystal that was dug from the mud many generations ago.

Seventeen years later, having found an abandoned farmstead and settled on it, the priest who had been searching for them on the night Ursule died finds them again. Nanette, the youngest girl of the family, finds that Ursules power has passed to her, and she and her sisters make a spell of protection. And so it goes through the generations; in each generation, there is one powerful woman. Others may have the knack of potions or small spells, but only one carries the power to activate the crystal.

We meet five generations of women. Some I adored; one I disliked intensely. Fortunes change through the years- drastically. Some are lucky in love; some are not. Some are dedicated to honoring the wheel of the year; some don’t perform the rituals for years. In the final book, the power of the Orchiere line becomes crucial to the protection of England. Through it all, their power and religion must be kept strictly secret.

I really enjoyed this book. The details of the lives of the women- especially during their years on the farm- bring the story to life. These are vivid, strong women. The only flaw in the book is the last book; after the body of the book is told in a way that one could easily believe it could have happened, the last book is rather over the top. It makes use of a historic person who seems like an unlikely witch, although it *would* explain her amazingly long life! I’d say four and a half stars out of five. 

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The Shepherd’s Crown, by Terry Pratchett. Harpers, 2015

  

“The Shepherd’s Crown” is the last book Terry Pratchett wrote. It’s also the last of the Tiffany Aching series, which are my favorites of the Discworld series. Following Tiffany as she grows and learns has been touching and humorous. In this book, she experiences a great loss, which leads to her having to make a big decision about her life. Pratchett’s version of being witch- to, as he says, do the good in front of you- sets well with my version of how life should be and what makes someone a good person. So I was delighted to discover that there was one more in the series that I thought had ended with the 4^th installment.

The book is not up to Pratchett’s usual standards. It was, basically, unfinished when he died. He had an outline, and certain scenes had been written, but a lot of it is bones with no flesh. It lacks the life and fullness that his writing usually had. But… what is filled out I found marvelous. It’s about being strong, and doing for other people and letting them do for you, dealing with the inevitability of death, and learning to be your own person. It’s about sometimes having to go against one’s normal beliefs when you have to protect others. Some parts that were unfinished make for jolting reading; the story arc of the Queen of the Elves seemed forced, and it ended suddenly in a way that totally surprised me. I suspect that she would have been given more time to transform had the book been finished. Likewise, I think Geoffrey would have been given more to do, and something more done with You, Granny Weatherwax’s cat. But even though it has a lot of rough places, I can’t help but give the story five stars for effort, atmosphere, and moral.

Pratchett apparently knew this would be his last Discworld novel, and a large number of characters from that universe make appearances- some barely cameos- but all saying goodbye to a beloved character and also to the reader. It’s sad to say goodbye to Discworld, although it will live on a long time, I suspect, as new readers discover the world that rides on the tortoise. 

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Uprooted, by Naomi Novik. Del Ray, 2015

In a world that sounds remarkably like Eastern Europe a number of centuries ago, seventeen year old Agnieszka knows she’ll be losing her best friend, Kasia, soon. Kasia is smart, beautiful, and moves with grace. Agnieszka is clumsy, always manages to get dirty, breaks things, can’t cook or sew worth a darn, and manages to muck everything up- although she does have a knack for negotiating the forest without harm and always comes back with something, be it mushrooms, fruit, firewood, or herbs. This is the year of the Choosing, when the local wizard known as the Dragon chooses a seventeen year old girl to take to his tower. She will not be seen again for ten years. The girls, who claim he never molests them (and they are never believed), never stay in the valley after they return and do not speak of what happened to them. It’s important to keep the Dragon happy, because his magic is all that stands between the area and the Wood. Something evil and greedy lives in the forest- IS the forest- and it always seeks to expand its territory.

To her surprise, Agnieszka is picked. She goes to live in the tower- and is surprised to discover that the Dragon is trying to teach her magic. She has a unique natural talent, linked to the earth, and how it is expressed creates problems between her and the Dragon. She has reason to need this new power soon, as warring kingdoms and the Wood create havoc.

I loved this book. I really liked Agnieszka- I can very much identify with a heroine who constantly gets dirty and rips her clothing! The way her magic worked had a very authentic ring to it. The snippy, sarcastic Dragon is kind of an ass at first, but he grew on me a lot. The Wood is a unique menace and very well done; I found it quite creepy. The style is rather like that of a fairy tale- one of the darker ones. There are battles, possessions, assassinations, perilous escapes, horrors, and good things. The ending, when the Wood is revealed and dealt with, surprised me. I could not put this book down- it’s over 400 pages and I read it in two days. 

I received this book free from the Amazon Vine program in return for a fair review. 

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Neither of these things influenced my review.