Rating: 4 stars
Defeat the Goblin TBR 26: The Magic book - A book with a magic system, or magic-related system (this one has both)
Buzzword Reading Challenge 26: Occupations
Buzzword Cover Challenge 26: Wings
Biddy lives on a small, magically isolated island off the coast of Ireland with her guardian/foster father, Rowan, and his familiar, the rabbit Hutchincroft. No one who doesn't know that it's there can find it. While Biddy has no magic of her own, she has grown up with it all around her. Yet magic is fading in the outside world, and far too often, Rowan has to leave Biddy to go to the mainland in bird form to find some small reserves of it. She hates it, but he is always back before dawn.
Then one night, Rowan doesn't come back, and Biddy, desperate to find him, uses a magical ring that allows her to travel through his nightmares to find him. He's been captured by powerful enemies and can only escape with Biddy's help. Once he returns home, shaken and weak, he tells Biddy a lot of things previously kept hidden. Not only that, but after telling Biddy that she cannot leave the island, because it wouldn't be safe, he now needs her to go to London, in disguise, to act as a distraction for his enemies.
The real world is a big and scary place, and it doesn't take long for Biddy to discover that Rowan may not have been telling the whole truth, or has possibly just badly underestimated the forces against him. Rowan ends up captured once again, while Biddy is in terrible danger. Nevertheless, she needs to be brave and resourceful in order to not only save Rowan's life, but possibly restore magic to the world once more.
Back in 2020, my book club read The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heap, and while it was fine, it also didn't make me run out and read more from the author. I'm not actually sure I remembered what else I had read by the author when I picked this out in a 3 for 2 sale. I just really liked the pretty cover, and the title sounded interesting. As so often happens, it went on a shelf, and I forgot all about it. Then it turned up on my friend Ashley's Vlog, as one of 11 underrated books more people need to read, and since Ashley and I still like a lot of the same books, a recommendation from her means I need to read it (unless it's horror, of course, I'm most likely not going to want to read those).
Once a year, five of my friends and I try to take a weekend away from our families, and we go on a cabin trip. While two are childless by choice, the rest of us have children, and just getting a weekend away to relax is a massive luxury. So of course, I was going to get lots of reading done, and this was one of the books I brought along. I think I made it to page 25, because I was busy chatting and catching up with my friends, and was too tired by the time bedtime came around to get anything much read at all.
So it took me a while to properly start this book, but when I finally did, it didn't take long before I didn't want to put it down. Biddy is an engaging heroine. She's curious and spends the first part of the book restless and frustrated that Rowan won't ever let her leave the island to explore. She's inquisitive and lonely, but when it finally becomes time to leave her safe home for the first time, it's with the knowledge that she's basically "bait" and could be in a lot of danger. To help Rowan, she's nevertheless willing to do it. She makes one of her first friends ever at the depressing, poverty-stricken children's home she's sent to live and work at.
Once the danger ramps up, she is naturally very scared, but doesn't let it stop her from acting. She meets several people from Rowan's past; one very sinister, one deeply terrifying and one who may turn out to be a useful ally.
My favourite supporting character was Hutchincroft, Rowan's bunny familiar. He can use magic to turn himself human, on occasion, so he and Biddy can speak (he speaks telepathically to Rowan), but a lot of the time, he's just a big, soft rabbit. I wish the reader could have got a bit more insight into his and Rowan's connection, but with the entire POV being from Biddy, I guess we can't have everything.
Parry has a lovely turn of phrase, and this story was unusual and went some unexpected places. While I wasn't too curious about her other writing after the Uriah Heap book, this makes me think I should give her other books another chance.
Judging a book by its cover: I really like the silhouettes on the cover, all very suitable. Young woman, bird, rabbit. I like the vines and flowers and the swirling patterns on the green background. What I don't like are the weird yellow spikes, like some sort of halo behind the woman's silhouette. Could absolutely have done without that.
Crossposted on Cannonball Read
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