St Andrews, Fife - not known for its glorious weather, but even so, Josh hadn't expected the sea to start to freeze and ice to creep up the beaches ...His summer holiday isn't looking too promising, especially as his only companions are a strange local girl, Callie, and her enormous dog Luath. Then they uncover the journal of an eighteenth-century girl who writes about a Kingdom of Summer, and suddenly they find themselves thrown headlong into a storm of witches, ice creatures, magic and the Winter King. A permanent winter threatens unless they can help restore the natural balance of the seasons. Can they stop the Winterbringers once and for all?
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"'Gill Arbuthnott is no one-novel wonder. She folds a full-blooded "other" world into the very real-feeling living space of her teenage characters.' - The Sunday Herald 'Dramatic, well crafted, well sustained and imaginative. Her relationships are utterly convincing, written without affectation or self-consciousness.' - Times Education Supplement Scotland 'An unusual, enjoyable combination of fantasy thriller and psychological drama with a warmly satisfying ending.' - The Scotsman"
About the Author
Gill Arbuthnott is the author of two other novels for children, The Chaos Clock and The Chaos Quest (both Floris Books). She is a teacher and lives in Edinburgh.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Among the current deluge of mediocre fantasy novels for older children, a few stand out as genuinely worthwhile, and 'Winterbringers' is one of them. Based on an authentic account of an eighteenth-century witch trial, it involves the attempts of two modern teenagers to link with, and partially counteract, the previous witches' attempts to increase the power of Summer in Fife - an endeavour that anybody who knows Fife can only approve of! The idea sounds wimsey, but it is well handled; the story is exciting, quite often scary, and the unnatural winter conditions are chillingly (!) evoked.
I give this three stars as a well-constructed, well-paced, enjoyable read. The main reason I won't go higher is the flimsy characterisation. The teenage protagonists, Josh and Callie, have potential as a contrasting pair - ordinary city boy and gifted country girl - but this potential for tension and human drama is scarcely tapped in the story. Rose, Callie's witch grandmother, likewise has unrealised potential, but the other characters are virtual nonentities. I didn't feel any personal concern for any of the characters; the interest lies exclusively in the incident, which means that the book might not stand up well to a second reading. Another, lesser gripe is that the author has made no attempt whatever to reproduce the language or thought-patterns of the eighteenth century. That is intellectual laziness, of a kind that's all too common in time-slip stories. People in past ages were not 'just the same as us', and they most certainly didn't talk like us.
I give this three stars as a well-constructed, well-paced, enjoyable read. The main reason I won't go higher is the flimsy characterisation. The teenage protagonists, Josh and Callie, have potential as a contrasting pair - ordinary city boy and gifted country girl - but this potential for tension and human drama is scarcely tapped in the story. Rose, Callie's witch grandmother, likewise has unrealised potential, but the other characters are virtual nonentities. I didn't feel any personal concern for any of the characters; the interest lies exclusively in the incident, which means that the book might not stand up well to a second reading. Another, lesser gripe is that the author has made no attempt whatever to reproduce the language or thought-patterns of the eighteenth century. That is intellectual laziness, of a kind that's all too common in time-slip stories. People in past ages were not 'just the same as us', and they most certainly didn't talk like us.
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