My Five Word TL:DR Review: Quite Simply, This Was Brilliant

I loved The Magician’s Daughter and can’t believe that I let this beautiful story languish on my shelves for so long. HG Parry is still a fairly new to me author, I have read and really enjoyed The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door and A Far Better Thing and recommend them highly and I did wonder, just for a tiny moment, if this might not be quite as good (being an earlier work being my reasoning) but I’ve never been quite so happy to be wrong. I fell for this book with ease – and really, having read the aforementioned books it shouldn’t ever been a doubt that I harboured. This author is my catnip. I feel like she’s writing these stories just for me. I realise that might sound incredibly selfish but seriously, it’s like she knows exactly the sort of story I love. And the writing – it’s magical. I am undone.

In a nutshell, the Magician’s daughter is a coming of age tale about a young orphan woman called Biddy. The year is 1912, Biddy has lived her life on a remote island with her guardian Rowan and his familiar – a rabbit called Hutch. Biddy is very familiar with magic and the magical – even though this is a period in which magic is disappearing from the world. The island on which she lives is protected and remains unseen to ordinary folk which is just as well because Rowan and Hutch seem to be in hiding and although Biddy longs to see other people and places she is, for the time being, forbidden to leave. It’s even possible she could be in danger. And yet, many times, in the dead of night, she witnesses Rowan transform into a raven and depart the isle for who knows where. Unfortunately, on one such escapade Rowan falls foul of his enemies and Biddy is left in the tricky position of having to venture further abroad to stage a rescue. Of course, nothing about this rescue is going to be easy and in the process everything Biddy knows will be called into question.

What I loved about this.

Well, apart from everything! The writing is wonderful. I really enjoy the way this author writes. She’s a conjuror of beautiful prose and a fantastic storyteller. Everything you read here just falls into place with what seems like ease – but I’m sure cost blood, sweat and tears in the making. The descriptions bring the story to life and there’s a real sense of whimsy that took me back to stories when I was much younger, first picking up fantasy (and not even knowing that’s what it was called) and simply becoming hooked. Books like these reinforce my love of reading and falling down these fantastically hypnotic wormholes where I remain captive until the last page.

The characters were also easy to fall for. Biddy is very easy to like. Rowan can be a little bit frustrating but in spite of that I still really liked him and Hutch is such a unique familiar – I loved him. I literally nearly cried at one point during this story – which I will not elaborate upon further I mention it only to demonstrate how very caught up my emotions were with these characters.

The story itself is intriguing. It doesn’t particularly race through the plot but at the same time there were no lulls. I never knew what to expect and the wealth of imagination was breathtaking. We have this alternate England where we visit the tight streets of Whitechapel and it’s poverty stricken residents, an underground castle populated by magical people who are watching the decline of the world they knew and then the small island that our main characters have been squirrelled away on for the past years, keeping company with black rabbits, strange critters and mentions of an ancient people that are reminiscent of the fae.

As I said above. Many things that Biddy thought she knew will be called into question. Rowan’s actions will be scrutinised and pulled apart by those that are his enemies – and even some who are not. Biddy knows nothing of his past and hasn’t seen the extremes to which some people will go to retain magic.

I don’t really want to say too much more. I had an absolutely lovely time reading this. I was captivated and couldn’t put it down and on the strength of this and the previous two books I really have to go back and read everything that this author has ever written. I don’t know how much more gushing I can do right now so I’ll quit at this point. Read it is my advice.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

My rating 5 magical stars