An Ignorant Witch (Graham)
(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)
This was a free book in an email. It's the first in the Witch Kin Chronicles, which includes similar titles where the adjective is changed. In fact, a few times while reading this, I thought it was "An Arrogant Witch". Nope, that was just Kindle trying to sell me the next book. (Granted, there are arrogant witches in this volume.) They also have similar covers, but they wouldn't lead me to believe that this is happening current day. The outfit the witch wears is old-fashioned.
First off, it's not exactly my cup of tea but there wasn't much to complain about for the most part. I can see why the series might be popular. I do have complaints about the ending, and the lack of closure. Yes, it's a series, and there are things that can be resolved later, but there are some things that needed to be resolved to complete this story in the series. Dara has the ability to see into Alt, which is a magical realm that exists right on top of our own, although at a different time period, even though the timelines run parallel.
Dara Martin is a bit of a ghost whisperer by way of being a half-blood witch. Her father is John De Teilhard, an important member of his Witch Kin, who had an affair with her mother 20 years earlier. The mother is now missing, and Dara lives with her Aunt Edna, who is a aware of the situation but keeps herself blissfully ignornat to the particulars. Her father gives her a stipend to go to school and to stay away from magic. It's dangerous for half-breeds, partiuclarly those with no training and no idea what they're doing. (Note that Dara has older step-siblings, so it wasn't like John stayed outside of witch kin first and then married into it. He had an affair with a woman he seemed to have love and then went back to his wife. And she took him back.)
Dara is friends with Alice Hoskins, who is Dara's only friend besides a ghost in Aunt Edna's house that won't leave its room. That ghost doesn't figure into this story. Alice has a brother named Benjy, who is trouble, and a dead great-grandmother, Old Nan, who is another ghost who has been acting up lately and won't leave the house. Dara can't make her leave, and Alice doesn't want to be in the room with her.
Benjy went to pick berries from a secret family patch days ago and hasn't returned. But it isn't unlike him to disappear with friends on a bender for a week. While hiking, the girls find the red bucket (insert poetic waxing about the perfectness of the bucket) that Benjy had. He's actually under the hill being held by fairies. Alice climbs in and Dara follows. Dara can see through the illusions and knows that everything is not as pleasant as it appears to be. Benjy is being held captive and he doesn't even know how miserable he is. If they can't rescue him, he will fade into a shade, like the band against the rock wall. Dara and Alice escape to figure out what to do, and to consult old Nan.
Dara looks for help. She goes to the new magic shop. She feels around but there is nothing magical about the shop, except for one coin in a barrel in the back of the shop, which seems to radiate evil, beckons to her, and reminds her of her mother. She stays away from the coin without asking anything the proprietor anything about it. This coin isn't referenced again, excpet when the shop is burned down later in the book. When Dara leaves the store, she is seen by her father and his wife who just happen to be passing by. The scene frustrates her so much that she shifts into Alt accidentally and nearly falls into the water because the shoreline has been built outward in the past hundred years or so.
Another half-breed, Hugh, calls her out. He saw her shift into Alt and back again. He's a witch from Scotland who is visiting Newfoundland, and staying at her father's house. Now we have most of the important players.
No one wants to help Dara save Benjy, so she tries herself. She speaks to the fairies and one of them wants a bottle of breast milk to help cure another one of them. Dara babysits, so she reluctantly agrees. The fairies follow her, get into the house, steal a bottle on their own, and also take the baby, leaving a changeling. Dara knows its a changeling but she can't explain it to her.
She continues blundering her way through plans and ideas to get help and nothing works. But she does wind up getting herself and Alice targeted for a ritual killing on the equinox the following night. With her from Hugh, they managed to foil the death plans. And Dara is finally ready to go away and learn about real magic.
Okay ... EXCEPT ... the plot at the start was to save Benjy, and in the middle of the book it grew to save Benjy and the baby. By the end, they needed to rescue Alice, too, which they do. And what about Benjy and the baby? Maybe it was a changeling? Maybe I was wrong? Ho hum? What if Benjy doesn't want to leave?
What?
I can understand not answering what happened to the mother. That happened before the book and would obviously be important to the series later on. And, okay, that stupid coin was some kind of plot hook left out for the future. But Benjy and the baby needed to be resolved. Even if they managed to save one but lost the other at the last minute.
Instead, it's all simply forgotten just because Hugh helped her solve a problem she got into in the latter half of the book because the events in the first half were so important, but not so much any more. Ho hum, what can we do? I don't buy it.
So while the book was written well enough, the story was not told enough. Would I read a second book? If it shows up for free on BookBub, maybe. Until then, probably not. I won't even try the library (which isn't likely to have it anyway.)
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