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Wintercraft
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Review
Almost every week another book tries to cash in on Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. Vampires, werewolves, fallen angels and the undead are all very well, but only if the stories are original, and stylish. Most are not.
Jenna Burtenshaw's debut comes as a breath of fresh air -- or should that be foul? Like Jospeh Delaney's The Spook's Apprentice, it comes from somebody who is a born writer and who has a genuinely scary premise about what might happen if some people were born able to see through the veil between the living and the dead.
Young Kate Winters is such a person, one of the Skilled, and her powers must be kept secret or she will be taken, like her parents before her, in the "harvest" from which none return. She has lived in the small town of Morvane with her bookseller uncle Artemis since she was 5, and his caution has kept her safe. Then, on the Night of Souls, their shop is attacked by blackbirds, hunting for the Skilled. When Kate heals a dead bird, proving her abilities, she and her friend Edgar must run for their lives pursued by the implacable hunter Silas Dane.
Silas, "neither fully dead nor completely alive, but unimaginably dangerous" with his supernatural powers of perception and his mixture of cruelty and pain, is key to why the novel stands out. He has been bound to a half-life by his cruel mistress, Da'ru, whom he must serve in her search for Wintercraft, the power of seeing the dead. He thirsts for revenge, but a complex relationship develops with Kate. Sooner or later the older woman and the young one will fight, for Kate's powers grow in the "grand graveyard city of Fume", whose unquiet souls make it one of those fantasy capitals you really want to avoid.
(...) Unlike the vampires and so forth, both these novels carry a genuine graveyard chill. Huge fun, and deliciously shivery. --Amanda Craig - The Times, June 12, 2010
Jenna Burtenshaw's debut comes as a breath of fresh air -- or should that be foul? Like Jospeh Delaney's The Spook's Apprentice, it comes from somebody who is a born writer and who has a genuinely scary premise about what might happen if some people were born able to see through the veil between the living and the dead.
Young Kate Winters is such a person, one of the Skilled, and her powers must be kept secret or she will be taken, like her parents before her, in the "harvest" from which none return. She has lived in the small town of Morvane with her bookseller uncle Artemis since she was 5, and his caution has kept her safe. Then, on the Night of Souls, their shop is attacked by blackbirds, hunting for the Skilled. When Kate heals a dead bird, proving her abilities, she and her friend Edgar must run for their lives pursued by the implacable hunter Silas Dane.
Silas, "neither fully dead nor completely alive, but unimaginably dangerous" with his supernatural powers of perception and his mixture of cruelty and pain, is key to why the novel stands out. He has been bound to a half-life by his cruel mistress, Da'ru, whom he must serve in her search for Wintercraft, the power of seeing the dead. He thirsts for revenge, but a complex relationship develops with Kate. Sooner or later the older woman and the young one will fight, for Kate's powers grow in the "grand graveyard city of Fume", whose unquiet souls make it one of those fantasy capitals you really want to avoid.
(...) Unlike the vampires and so forth, both these novels carry a genuine graveyard chill. Huge fun, and deliciously shivery. --Amanda Craig - The Times, June 12, 2010
Product Description
Ten years ago Kate Winters’ parents were taken by the High Council’s wardens to help with the country’s war effort.
Now the wardens are back...and prisoners, including Kate's uncle Artemis, are taken south on the terrifying Night Train. Kate and her friend Edgar are hunted by a far more dangerous enemy. Silas Dane – the High Council’s most feared man – recognises Kate as one of the Skilled; a rare group of people able to see through the veil between the living and the dead. His spirit was damaged by the High Council’s experiments into the veil, and he’s convinced that Kate can undo the damage and allow him to find peace.
The knowledge Kate needs lies within Wintercraft – a book thought to be hidden deep beneath the graveyard city of
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Wintercraft,
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This review is from: Wintercraft (Paperback)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
Normally, I am a great fan of this genre and style of book so I had high hopes for Wintercraft. However, I found myself thoroughly bored and disappointed and have given up on the story half way through. I'm not sure if it is the characters, the pace or just the style of writing in general but I couldn't connect with the story or empathise with the characters at all.The premise for the story was certainly interesting but, for me, not quite successfully executed.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant Book At Bedtime,
By
This review is from: Wintercraft (Paperback)
Wintercraft is a surprisingly good fantasy adventure story. Basic plot: a young girl lives with her uncle and discovers she has supernatural powers. However, something dark wants those powers and will stop at nothing to get them. This book is a real page turner and as I don't want to give away too much of the plot, I can highly recomment this book be you a young or older adult. Great bed time read!!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The craft,
By
This review is from: Wintercraft (Paperback)
It's refreshing to read a dark fantasy book that stands alone as a self-contained work, rather than as an open-ended beginning of a trilogy or longer series, yet also manages to bring its world and its characters fully to life. Or perhaps bringing them to life isn't the best term to use in this case, since a sense of death is all around in this world, its mysteries accessible to a special few known as the Skilled, who can look beyond the veil and make use of its powers in a manner that would be of great use to a few ambitious people.Kate Winter is one of those gifted with such power, but she isn't aware of it until the wardens arrive to harvest the town of Morvane, gathering people to send off and fight in wars that no-one seems to know a great deal about, or indeed even who they are being sent out to fight against. Others however, connected to the High Council of Albion, know not only all about such matters, but also know about Kate and covet the powers that are latent within her. The formidable Silas Dane, commander of the wardens, himself neither dead nor alive, brings Kate to Fume, a vast necropolis, now the capital city of Albion to try and tap into those abilities, but Da'ru Marr of the High Council also has plans for Kate, looking to recover an ancient book of power, Wintercraft, and find a person with the ability to unlock its secrets. A dark fantasy book aimed at older teens/young adults, Wintercraft is well-paced for its readership. The opening half of the novel feels a little restrictive, with a limited number of characters and minimal background detail, the plot not really extending beyond Kate and her friend Edgar constantly escaping from the clutches of Silas Dane and being recaptured, but it serves its function well, keeping the reader involved without unnecessarily burdening the narrative with up-front information dumping. Eventually, just as the pattern of capture and evasion is getting a little predictable and a little too easy, the storyline develops, the extent of the powers wielded by the Skilled is revealed a little more, and the novel opens up with its exploration of Fume, its inhabitants and its dark secrets. Wintercraft doesn't go anywhere new in terms of dark fantasy, but the earthly locations and the sense of the otherworld is well evoked, creating a distinct mood and a compelling situation for its young characters to deal with that isn't burdened by preachy life lessons or a condescending moralising tone. The novel seems self-contained, but there is surely an opportunity for a follow-up to explore some more aspects of this world, and that would be very welcome indeed.
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