My Five Word TL:DR Review: This Book is Utterly Delicious

What more can I say.  I loved this book.  This is one of those books that is simply beautiful.  It’s well written, it has so many things going for it.  It wants to be savoured but begs to be devoured.  It’s magic, it’s fae, it’s dark academia.  It has this wisp of A Secret of History, coupled with magical studies, found family and is set during a chaotic period of history where things were changing rapidly.

The story is told by Clover Hill.  Clover lives on a farm in the shadow of Pendle Hill but she has ambitions and she’s bright and intelligent.  All she needs is a little push and so when her brother is cursed during a battle (WW1) Clover is determined to find the cure.  With this in mind, and a little help from others, she gains access to an elite school of magic, shrouded (quite literally) in mist and mystery, this is a place for Family – the upper echelons of society who send their children here to learn magic.  As you might imagine, at first Clover doesn’t really blend in very easily until, quite remarkably she’s taken under the wing of the golden boy of the school and his small group of friends.  What could possibly go wrong.

Let me tell you the ways in which I loved this book.

Firstly, the writing is so lovely,  I found myself reading this in a leisurely way, absorbing the words and not giving a fig how long it was taking to move forward.  In fact, I’m sorry it’s over, I really am.

Secondly, the characters.  Clover is a great character.  She’s real.  She’s honest.  She recognises that sometimes she does things for selfish purposes, she tries occasionally to kid herself but then she just calls it out for what it is.  The secondary characters are really well drawn.  They’re all different, with different motivations and they form into this really great unit – until everything goes horribly wrong.

The setting works really well. We have the period feel, WW1 has just ended, it’s a time of change and possibility.  Then we have the secret magical world, hidden from most, by the upper classes who believe that magic should be kept for them alone, a belief that has led to the keeping of some very terrible secrets.  And, we have the world of the fae, tantalisingly close but locked away (for the most part at least).

And, then, the story.  I’m not going to go into any details.  I loved it.

In case you can’t tell, I loved this and I’m only here to say good things and spread the love.  My one wish – I would love to return to this world, but this feels like a novel that is complete (I hope I’m wrong though).  Time to go back and check out this author’s backlist methinks.

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

My rating 5 of 5 stars