Jamie Ferguson

Meh, A prequel to the world at best, with far too much unexplained even by the end of the book, It's possible there's a grand design to the rest of the series, but you have the strong impression the author's making it up as they go along.

A shopkeeper's trying to get ready for their grand opening, when a flakey cousin turns up and insists she's really a witch, but then keeps running away without giving any details. The only 'spell' she's shown is a 'lookaway' for disguising a car parked on double yellows etc (with no compunction about the inconvenience this causes everyone else). Of course our heorine tries it out on the shop and discovers she really is a witch, nobody can see her shop. Now how do you think it might be lifted? Various other family drop by with subtle hints about a greater society but nothing to show for it.

Had promise but needs more than chatty heroine.… (more)

Bit of a mixed mythos that doesn't really work together and lacking in the world development that would make a fun series. However it's not totally without charm and the characters interact together quite well, if at times somewhat one dimensionally.

There's two main strands of plot that quickly weave together. A selkie loses his skin to a local witch, and the faerie princess escapes a demanding faerie lord. She arrives in the Land of Men knowing very little of how mortals live, but somewow manages to pick things up far too quickly. Obviously the selkie asks the faerie for help. Everything else plays out pretty much as you'd expect.

It's a kind of interesting world, and I'd enjoy more novels set there, but the plotting was just a little bit too simplistic to really do it justice in this one. I'm never a fan of controlling relationships or insta-lovers, but the contrast between the two was mildly entertaining for a while.… (more)