The second novel in Andrew Caldecott QC‘s magical realism / fantasy fiction trilogy, set in the independent enclave of Rotherweird.
At first glance a typical market town and surrounding countryside setting, but where the study of history is limited to 1800 onwards, and society has gone its own way since Elizabethan times.
We meet many of the characters first introduced in Rotherweird, and some new faces, both fiendish and friendly. And the plot thickens….
A present day / historical fantasy loan from Hazel, which, together with the follow up, Wyntertide, provided a fun read after the more sombre The Garden of Evening Mists.
Jonah Oblong is an Outsider, hired to teach Modern History – 1800 onwards only – at Rotherweird school.
Rotherweird is an independent and isolated rural enclave, a train ride from central London.
Oblong discovers a mediaeval-eqsue market town, complete with an Olde Englande architecture and economy, Heath Robinson inventions and inventors, both eccentric and scientific, surrounded and supported by a Darling Buds of May-eque Countryside – and becomes embroiled in a plot that races along powered by large dollops of magic and mystery, murder and mayhem.
Good fun.
And the author is not at all what I’d expected, given similar loans from Hazel by Ben Aaronovitch and Benedict Jacka.
Rollicking fantasy set in modern day English village / town (in the West Country was my impression). Loki escapes eternal torment into AsgardTM computer game, and from there into self harming, anorexic teen, Jumps.
Slowly settling into their shared space, Loki and Jumps discover other gods have made similar journeys to this part of the English countryside, and soon old rivalries resurface and battles resume…
I’d not realised it was part of a series. And, yes, it is that Joanne Harris.
