'It's 1577. Queen Elizabeth I has imprisoned scheming Mary Queen of Scots, and Alyce's mother is burned at the stake for witchcraft. Alyce kills the witchfinder and flees to London - but the chase isn't over yet. As she discovers her own dark magic, powerful political forces are on her trail. She can't help but wonder: why is she so important? Soon she finds herself deep in a secret battle between rival queens, the fate of England resting on her shoulders.'
I enjoy a good historical book, though often stick to the Victorian era, so this trip back to the 1500's made a nice change for me, getting to experience a new setting and era for this magical young adult adventure story.
The book follows Alyce, a teenage girl whose mother has just been killed by Witchfinders, burned at the stake because she wouldn't give them Alyce's location. Having lost the only home and family that she's ever known Alyce is forced to kill one of these men, and flee to London. After this brief introduction the action jumps forwards a few months to find Alyce a prisoner in Bedlam insane asylum. From here she ends up on an adventure that sends her across London, into the heart of monarchy, and fighting against powerful supernatural forces.
Nicholas Bowling shows quite a bit of restraint with Witchborn, and for a good portion of the book it's not entirely clear if their is the supernatural in this world, or if what we're experiencing is something much more mundane. For example, Alyce's mother could have used magic to harm one of the Witchfinders, but it could have also been simply knowing about plants and herbal medicine. Equally, she doesn't use any kind of powers to try to escape or protect herself, and her whole capture and execution could be seen as simply a woman the local community didn't like getting targeted just because she was different.
Carrying on from this, Alyce seems to believe that certain charms and actions can help her and bring her luck, but we don't get told this isn't anything but superstition and the power of positive thinking. Add to this, she keeps getting told by adults who know a thing or two about herbal medicine and witchfinders that there's no such thing as witches. Whilst these doubts get completely squashed by the end of the book, and we learn that the supernatural and magic is a very real thing, it means that for a good while you're not left wondering about magic and powers, but instead concentrate on getting to know the characters and the world.
Readers get to know Alyce well, and you'll come to care about her very quickly. She's a girl that has lost everything, who's on the run for her life for the crime of her mother having been targeted by bigots. Her plight, and her constant worry of how to survive endears you to her quickly.
The other characters are pretty well fleshed out too. Solomon, a young man who saves Alyce more than once, and also has a mother who some would consider to be a witch, is an intriguing and engaging enough characters to be able to lead his own novel; and you find yourself wanting to spend more time with him and learning more. Whilst other characters don't get this level of treatment, the side characters still prove to be interesting, and even spending a little while with them lets you learn a lot about their personalities and motivations.
The plot follows a similar structure to the magic in the book, and for a while you'll be led to believe that it's simply about a lone girl trying to survive, and those out hunting her. You'll be given reasonable explanations for what's happening, and will even start to thing that the story is quite simple, but soon Bowling starts to lay the seeds for something more and more complex. After a while you get hints at something bigger happening behind the scenes, but even then there's still a sense of mystery as not all the answers are given to us, and there's a number of revelations come the climax that I genuinely found surprising and didn't expect.
Witchborn was a book that led me to believe one thing, but then delivered another. It build its world and characters well, and never felt boring or unoriginal in what it was doing. With so many young adult books set in contemporary times, or some apocalyptic future, it made a great change of pace to go back to another point in history, one that isn't explored too often in the genre. This setting not only added to the story, but made it so much better than it could have been. A great historical fiction mixed with magic and mystery.
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