This is a British novel which is fine with me, but some stateside readers might find the wording rather peculiar at times. The story is of Erica Royal and her brother Clark who we meet in the middle of Wytewoods on the run. They're trying to reach a safe city where Erica's uncontrollable magic can be removed, but they're being pursued by minions of two evil witches who control the woods and want her magic.
This begs the immediate question as to why the kids (and why are they traveling alone?) are going through the woods instead of around them. The woods do not go on forever in all directions, but no answers are to be found on that score. Predictably and inevitably, Erica is captured by the witches and Clark is rescued by a girl named Rose who also happens to be a witch, and who agrees to help him track down and rescue Erica.
I have to say the story is rather depressing because it's an unrelenting downer of struggles and torments with nothing to leaven the load. I confess I found that irritating, as I did the fact that two witches are perverting the woods and allowing all manner of evil to grow there, yet no explanation is offered for why this is so. Why are they so outright evil as opposed to just being obsessed with capturing Erica's magic? There's no explanation for this either, and their evil and the perverse nature of the woods seems to serve no purpose - not for the story, other than to render it rather horrific, or more to the point, in terms of serving any purpose for the witches. It seemed like a waste of magic.
I also have to say that Clark is a moron. Despite having traveled in the woods and survived, he persistently underestimates it and fails to heed good advice given by expert Rose, repeatedly blundering into situations and undermining Rose's help and his own quest. He's also not too bright. At one point, a stone statue offers him good advice, which for once he follows and it saves his life. Later, when Rose talks of asking these statues, called oracles, for help, Clark's moronic retort is "How's a lump of stone going to help us find a witch?" Did he forget that one of these 'lumps' saved his life because it knew things?
Rose is a freaking saint just for putting up with Clark, let alone leading him to his sister, and he never truly appreciates her. That said, overall the story is pretty decent (remembering the caveats above) and I commend it as a worthy read.
