Blurb and book cover image from Goodreads:
The faeries of Witchwood Manor have stolen its young lord. His governess intends to steal him back.
Victorian governess Winifred Hall knows a con when she sees one. When her bratty young charge transforms overnight into a perfectly behaved block of wood, she soon realises that the real boy has been abducted by the Fair Folk. Unfortunately, the lord of Witchwood Manor is the only man in England who doesn’t believe in faeries—which leaves Winnie in the unenviable position of rescuing the young lord-to-be all by herself.
Witchwood Manor is bigger than its inhabitants realise, however, and full of otherworldly dangers. As Winnie delves deeper into the other side of the house, she enlists the aid of its dark and dubious faerie butler, Mr Quincy, who hides several awful secrets behind his charming smile. Winnie hopes to make her way to the centre of the Witchwood Knot through wit and cleverness… but when all of her usual tricks fail, who will she dare to trust?
Thank you to Netgalley UK for providing me with an ARC of this wonderful book. Here I am, in the death throes of 2023, attempting to get a head start on resolutions by writing a book review.
Anything I have read from Olivia Atwater has been an absolute delight. Her books were originally recommended to me in a delightful writing/reading discord community and when I saw this was available, I jumped on it. No regrets.
The relationship between Faerie and Regency and Victorian England has been well established in previous books but this is an entirely separate story; it’s absolutely not necessary to read the other books first but you are probably going to want to dive into them when you’ve read this gothic tale about a kind of governess, with many secrets, who travels to Witchwood Manor as a favour for an old acquaintance and patron. Winifred Hall is a wonderful protagonist, who is a survivor in every sense of the world, and Mr Quincy is the rather mysterious butler (or is he?). Winnie has to rescue her young charge and use every one of her wits to do it.
What I thoroughly enjoyed about this book (and about all of Atwater’s books to date) is the clever worldbuilding. It is no mean feat to have such solid worldbuilding and internal logic when dealing with illogical, whimsical Faeries, but it is handled masterfully and, as an Irishwoman, the nods to Irish mythology, and the use of Irish language, are deeply enjoyable.
Rating: 4.5 stars
whelmed.blog 