The Moonset were a coven that tried to change witch
society. Through a series co terrorist attacks they took out most of their
challengers, killed any witch or coven that could stand against them. They
built a cult of followers.
But they didn’t win. Slowly but surely they were pushed
back until, to everyone’s surprise, they surrendered and were executed. Leaving
behind their 5 children – protected by a curse that prevented them from being
harmed or separated, the witch government was left with the Moonset’s children
to raise
Which is where we come in, following Justin, Malcolm,
Jenna, Cole and Bailey, the children of the hated Moonset, moved from place to
place and held by witch guardians who can barely hide their disdain for the
troublesome teens. Until the latest move to a town where it all began – a town
with a warlock lurking in the shadows, demanding the Moonset children.
Are the teens there as bait? Or as collateral damage and
quiet removal?
Look at that synopsis and drool, folks. A secret magical
society with some excellent world building on the nature and workings of magic,
hints of far more to come. A coven gone to the dark side and executed, their
children bonding together both through unknown magic and desperate
self-preservation in a society that is determined to hold them responsible for
their parents’ crimes. Their close bonds, their anger, their trust issues and
their desire for acceptance all at war, overlaid with a dark plot to try and
draw them into the same dark side their parents embraced. But then, a new
thread to the mystery – maybe their parents were not so simple as was
previously suggested…
Seriously, how could you not write an awesome story with
this as its seed? It’s a wonderfully imaginative gift, there’s so much there,
there’s essences of originality, compelling hooks for a whole story and so many
wonderful things to explore. How could this book not be awesome?
No, really… how could you not write an excellent book
with this?
That isn’t a rhetorical question. Because I’m at a loss
how such a wonderful world, setting and idea could produce this rather dull
book. It’s like seeing someone take a wonderful block of gold veined marble and
making door stops with it.
Primarily, this is because of the writing. It’s very
overwritten, very over descriptive and metaphors and similes have been crammed
in like commuters in a London Tube at rush hour. And even less smoothly than
that one. If you cut out the excess verbiage this book could have been half as
long and much faster moving; we don’t need everything described in such vivid
and exhaustive detail – it doesn’t set the scene, it distracts from it and
focuses on irrelevant minutia. Like the travelling, we’re treated to several
paragraphs of Justin wondering whether they’re in New York state – yes, you
are, now move on! And not only do we have a lot of “tell” rather than “show”
but sometimes the tell is used to try and overwhelm the show. Like Justin muses
how he’s disturbed at how many of their days end with bandages and bleach (i.e.
they get hurt a lot) and we see this by… it never happening again the whole
book. Or happening again before this incident either. In fact, since before
this they were just moved around while Jenna got them expelled, I fail to see
why it was a major factor before.
Sometimes the writing even destroys the mood – like describing
a Wraith in wonderfully creepy terms and then having him have a voice that
hisses like a deflating tire. Really? Because I was with your cinder crackling,
bone crunching, sibilant wraith, only now he’s deflating like some kind of
spooky Michelin man. Less is more sometimes. Or there’s similes that are just
so over the top that the scene is ruined by my mad cackling, example:
Cut the wraith down like it was the first born son, and this was a plague.
There’s no way the author wrote that line with a straight
face.
The book is also hopelessly focused on one character –
Justin. No-one else is explored with any great depth, no relationships are
truly developed and explained or shown. Everything is from Justin’s viewpoint
and most of that contains a lot of telling, a lot of monologuing and a lot of
angst. It doesn’t help that’s he’s more than a little self-absorbed. He thinks
of his siblings – but only in the shallowest ways and usually in terms of
protecting them or, more often, preventing them getting in trouble. He doesn’t
have any kind of friendship with them or even any kind of relationship – they’re
burdens to control and irritations to endure.
