A wonderfully evocative and positive opening with Ivy, our protagonist, thinking of something that she loves - a butterfly emerging after it's metamorphosis, of being freed. Slowly you are being drawn into the story, and what a story it is.
Ivy is 17, and having been abandoned by her birth mother as a baby she has begun her journey in life in care. Constantly shunted around between children's homes and foster carers, always searching and hoping for a forever home.
But Ivy has also been searching for her birth mother, and she may just have found her. Circumstances have given Ivy the chance to physically search for her mother and she takes it.
And so Ivy begins her quest for her birth mother. All the time questioning - why was she abandoned, why did her mother not love or care for Ivy, has she got any other family? Brothers and sisters? Or other family members?
Ivy's journey is not an easy one, taking her taking her across Wales and to a small remote island. The quest for her birth mother draws Ivy into a darker and more complicated world than she expected. With the journey encompassing the myths and legends of Merlin and King Arthur, Ivy needs all of her mental and emotional strength that she can summon in order to reach through and find the light in all of the darkness.
* * * * * * *
The characters are written with depth and personality; and descriptions of their appearance and traits/habits. They are realistic believable people - characters with life, not flat cardboard cutouts.
Rachel Burge's writing style is both breathtaking and haunting as she weaves us, the reader, through the story. Taking us by the hand on a journey into the darkness and withdrawing us, then returning us to even darker moments.
It is a journey for the senses - the sights, sounds and smells wrapping themselves around us.
Death's head moths circling overhead foreshadowing difficulties ahead. Smells of overripe fruit and rotting vegetation, the stench of decay.
Deliciously brooding and gothic descriptive phrasing littered throughout.
Words curling into her like fish hooks; tongue is swollen and flaps like an eel; a wail of rage so terrifying it could rip the flesh from a rodent's back; rotting flesh mixed with the acrid stench of sulphur; reaching into the swirling darkness coming from his mouth; not watching the shadows, but looking for the light . . . . (gulp!)
Themes of abandonment and decay throughout: abandoned baby; empty cottages; closed-up schoolroom; crumbling abbey and lopsided gravestones. Abandoned island, people gone, farm animals gone, nothing that is human or living left.
All of these descriptions combined create a sumptuously enchanting, atmospheric setting and an ideal read leading up to Halloween.
Threaded throughout the story there is the underlying theme of metamorphosis - the caterpillars turning into butterflies and moths; Ivy on the verge of adulthood - both telling of the change from youth to maturity. Also changing from someone you think you should be, to becoming the real person who is inside you.
Waking the Witch? It is also about waking your real self.
Ivy is 17, and having been abandoned by her birth mother as a baby she has begun her journey in life in care. Constantly shunted around between children's homes and foster carers, always searching and hoping for a forever home.
But Ivy has also been searching for her birth mother, and she may just have found her. Circumstances have given Ivy the chance to physically search for her mother and she takes it.
And so Ivy begins her quest for her birth mother. All the time questioning - why was she abandoned, why did her mother not love or care for Ivy, has she got any other family? Brothers and sisters? Or other family members?
Ivy's journey is not an easy one, taking her taking her across Wales and to a small remote island. The quest for her birth mother draws Ivy into a darker and more complicated world than she expected. With the journey encompassing the myths and legends of Merlin and King Arthur, Ivy needs all of her mental and emotional strength that she can summon in order to reach through and find the light in all of the darkness.
* * * * * * *
The characters are written with depth and personality; and descriptions of their appearance and traits/habits. They are realistic believable people - characters with life, not flat cardboard cutouts.
Rachel Burge's writing style is both breathtaking and haunting as she weaves us, the reader, through the story. Taking us by the hand on a journey into the darkness and withdrawing us, then returning us to even darker moments.
It is a journey for the senses - the sights, sounds and smells wrapping themselves around us.
Death's head moths circling overhead foreshadowing difficulties ahead. Smells of overripe fruit and rotting vegetation, the stench of decay.
Deliciously brooding and gothic descriptive phrasing littered throughout.
Words curling into her like fish hooks; tongue is swollen and flaps like an eel; a wail of rage so terrifying it could rip the flesh from a rodent's back; rotting flesh mixed with the acrid stench of sulphur; reaching into the swirling darkness coming from his mouth; not watching the shadows, but looking for the light . . . . (gulp!)
Themes of abandonment and decay throughout: abandoned baby; empty cottages; closed-up schoolroom; crumbling abbey and lopsided gravestones. Abandoned island, people gone, farm animals gone, nothing that is human or living left.
All of these descriptions combined create a sumptuously enchanting, atmospheric setting and an ideal read leading up to Halloween.
Threaded throughout the story there is the underlying theme of metamorphosis - the caterpillars turning into butterflies and moths; Ivy on the verge of adulthood - both telling of the change from youth to maturity. Also changing from someone you think you should be, to becoming the real person who is inside you.
Waking the Witch? It is also about waking your real self.