I received this book for an honest review. All expressed opinions, cynical or otherwise, are my own.
Something is missing in modern fantasy today. The lion’s share that forms the bulwark of the genre’s ground troops seem lacking – like they are missing an important piece of their equipment. As if in haste, they all decided to leave their helmets back home before they went a-sieging the castle. Oh, there are several of the usual tropes. Fey creatures. Magic. However, the stories lack gravitas; the weight that these otherworldly things should bring. And this is where I find myself with Kater Cheek’s The Witch’s Jewel (Kit Melbourne book 1). Excellently written, with engaging characters, but a setting where encountering of the unusual has all the significance of suddenly deciding to order a different cup of coffee.
Kit Melbourne has inherited a magical bindi from an uncle she hardly knew. Overtures from prospective buyers, quickly turn into burglary attempts as the mystical trinket’s reappearance has set the magical community abuzz. Can Kit discover the secret of the jewel, and save her own life?
The Witch’s Jewel has something going for it that a lot of other novels don’t: a strong start. The first seven chapters are excellent. Kater really takes her time to establish the scene, set the characters, feel, and build tension (and romantic tension). Based on the opening, I really felt that this was going to be a book to break the mould of carbon-copy and fluffy witch-sorcerer-magic so-and-so in training (most of them throw in a school like Hogwarts, then stir in nonsense until done) that inundate the scene. To some extent that is still true, but the later chapters seem to break down as if in a rush.
Chapter eight is where this changes. Here the previous foreshadowing is thrown out the door, as well as any potential gravitas to the various reveals. Characters, bestiary, setting and themes– mostly of which are of course, supernatural in origin – are thrown at us willy-nilly, without any development. Chapters eight through ten seem to be a catwalk of otherworldly characters with little breath between. Getting past these, the plot seems to plod a bit, as if trying to digest a huge thanksgiving meal. This all eventually evens out, however, the damage is done; I never regain that sense of the “other” so necessary in these sort of books to build mystique.
Despite this, The Witch’s Jewel (Kit Melbourne book 1) is a strong enough opener to warrant further progression into the series. Kater Cheek understands character development, and this will be key later to bridge the mid-book problems that this first novel fell victim too. I am curious to see how it all turns out, and I am sure most potential readers will too.
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