After
her brush with Necromancy in Scotland Ivy has been suffering some side effects
- she’s not sure of the full implications, but it seems she can see ghosts
Ghosts
are noisy and annoying and don’t respect a woman’s wish to bond with her duvet
on her sofa all day
Some
of these ghosts are not exactly thrilled to have the less-than-motivated Ivy as
the one woman who can see them, but you work with what you can since she may be
the key to freeing them from their purgatory - and with a serial killer on the
loose targetting witches, their ghostly insight can certainly help the Order
investigation.
This
book ended and apparently this amazing series is a trilogy which means thi is
the last book. No-one consulted me on this. I did not agree to this. I do not
approve. This is my disapproving face.
But
as it has ended, one thing I really liked is that Ivy is still very
recognisable as the character who started this series. She’s still the Slouch
Witch. She’s still lazy. She still avoids effort.
I’m
not saying I’m against character growth or that Ivy hasn’t grown or changed.
She has changed and she has grown, she has got involved. She will whine but she
will get out there and help when she has to. She would just rather not do it
first thing in the morning. Her talent and skill are clear as well as well as
her moral compass and even willingness to sacrifice. But so many books would
have taken Ivy, had her had a revelation, maybe a training montage and then
have her spending late nights reading books or getting up at dawn to go to the
gym. Her heroics haven’t turned her into a new person. Even her new powers
haven’t driven her to embrace her new purpose in life. She’s still Ivy, laziest
witch and I like that because everything that made her so unique is still there
and it wasn’t treated as something to remove from the character. Again, I’m not
against that kind of character growth, but I like that we kept the very essence
of what makes Ivy Ivy
And
I do love Ivy. I love that Ivy is such a perfect, ordinary person even if she
does have extraordinary powers. Yes she’s fighting evil, yes she’s involved in
a dangerous investigation but that core of such normality, that foundation of
duvet loving, laziness makes her so relatable and real. And I just love how her
talking cat fits into that - I can’t even begin to spoil it even if it isn’t
especially plot relevant, it’s just too awesome.
I
also like how Raphael has grown over the series - I think he still needs a
little more than being the hyper-competent guy who loves Ivy. but in some ways
him being this picture-perfect awesome guy he emphasises Ivy’s realness - while
not overshadowing her because she can go toe-to-toe with her. I think it’s even
intentional because a number of the more side characters have elements which I
appreciate: from the simple dedication of the Ipissimus to even
designated-rival-bad-guy actually being useful and helpful even while Ivy
seethes over it. I like that, I like that even the caricature of awful is still
not all bad - and that Ivy isn’t the bigger person to let this go
I’m
also loving a depiction of ghosts as annoying pushing nuisances - as well as
the whole extremely original concept of how ghosts are created.
Honestly, I need more from this series, because it needs more. This series has already teased a little bit about how magic interacts with the greater world - from reality TV in the last book through to this book showing us witches who are not part of the Order to seeing how the Order’s witches interact with mortal police series. We see a lot of these excellent little little hints of the wider world which just screams for more development. Especially since Ivy, with her general irreverence and not really caring about the Order walks through this, cuts through all the nonsense and ritual in such an excellent fashion.
Diversitywise,
sadly the book somewhat falls down. While we have Ivy as an awesome women and
some other female characters who are completely undemonised kind of in her
orbit (some of the main ghosts she communicates with are women), there’s more
men around her than anything else, no meaningful POC and no LGBTQ people at
all. It's the main barrier to me utterly fanpoodling this whole series
I’m
not overly enamoured of the plot - I mean it’s not bad by any stretch of the
imagination - it’s a great, fun story. But the point of this book is Ivy. Ivy
is hilarious, fun, and cuts through this plot in awesome fashion, elevating a
fairly simple and linear murder mystery to all greater levels, taking these small
hints of world building and making me want more through Ivy’s lens. She’s
original. She’s fun and she drives the entire book, sprinkling her magic on
everything; this cannot end.
