My Five Word TL:DR Review: Slow Start but Patience Rewarded

Once Was Willem was, for me, a book that took a little time to get it’s feet under the table, but once it did so it kept me utterly hooked.  Such a strange yet enjoyable mediaeval fantasy horror with a truly unique voice.  A sort of Frankenstein-Magnificent Seven smash up if you will.

I suppose what you need to know first of all is this is Once Was Willem’s story, which shouldn’t really be a surprise given the title.  Once Was Willem is a revenant, brought back to life at the request of his parents by an unscrupulous and conniving wizard.  We take a little while to get to this particular aspect of the story but once we meet Cain Caradoc – the evil wizard himself – the narrative really takes off.

OWW is of course reviled by his parents.  They hadn’t really given much thought to the fact that they were bringing back to life a body that had been in the ground for almost a year, they didn’t understand that he would no longer be the Willem that they knew and loved, and if Caradoc was aware of the terrible implications, which he was, he certainly wasn’t inclined to share these thoughts but was more interested in his tithe – a sliver of Willem’s soul to feed his thirst for immortality.  Willem is chased from the village by your typical angry mob bearing pitchforks and begins to find a new family living remotely in the mountains, a strange cast of characters that I loved.  He begins to forget Willem although he at times hankers after his village and friends and family.

I won’t give too much away, this is your basic story of good vs evil but with some very unlikely characters picking up the slack on behalf of the poor downtrodden peasants.  It’s very much a story of accepting people and literally not judging them based on appearance alone.

What I really enjoyed about this.

Set some time between the 11th and 12th century Willem tells his tale with an archaic voice that I really enjoyed and is seriously easy to get used to.  This isn’t one of those stories that modernises everything including the language or prettifies the people and the landscape.  Times were hard.  People were oftentimes even harder.  Thieves and outlaws live in the forests – temporarily at least! Life was cheap back then.  And evil wizards need souls for their dastardly tinkering.  So, yes, I enjoyed very much the way Willem tells his story. It’s with a straightforwardness that helps to make some of the slightly more horrible aspects readable.  Lets just say I don’t think I’d like to get on the wrong side of an author who can come up with such a despicable way to create a suit or armour – or indeed a puppet without strings.  Cringes.

As I said, the start meandered a little and at one point I was curious about where this was going but I’m so glad I continued, my current reading mood is very temperamental so I almost thought of putting this aside – but Carey is an author that I really like and I was so curious to see what was going to happen.

I loved the Magnificent Seven vibe.  A group of misfits, coming together to help the underdog – and, essentially, save the world I suppose, because once an evil wizard has access to great power – well, they’re not known for their overwhelming sense of ‘great responsibility’.

I’m being a bit cautious with this review because I don’t want to give away too much so I’ll conclude by saying if you fancy a read that somehow manages to contain magic, folklore, Christian mythology and creative horror whilst bringing together the most unexpected found family ever – then this is the one for you.  Dive in and enjoy.

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

My rating 4 of 5 stars