Walk the Wild with Me

De: Rachel Atwood

Narrado por: Matthew Lloyd Davies

Orphaned when still a toddler, Nicholas Withybeck knows no other home than Locksley Abbey outside Nottingham, England. He works in the scriptorium embellishing illuminated manuscripts with hidden faces of the Wild Folk and whimsical creatures that he sees every time he ventures into the woods and fields. His curiosity leads him into forbidden nooks and crannies both inside and outside the abbey, and he becomes adept at hiding to stay out of trouble.

On one of these forays Nick slips into the crypt beneath the abbey. There he finds an altar older than the abbey's foundations, ancient when the Romans occupied England. Behind the bricks around the altar, he finds a palm-sized silver cup. The cup is embellished with the three figures of Elena, the Celtic goddess of crossroads, sorcery, and cemeteries.

Guided by Elena along secret forest paths, Nick learns that Little John's love has been kidnapped by Queen Mab of the Faeries. The door to the Faery mound will only open when the moons of the two realms align. That time is fast approaching. Nick must release Elena so that she can use sorcery to unlock that door, allowing Nick's band of friends to try to rescue the girl. Will he have the courage to release her as his predecessor did not?

©2019 Rachel Atwood (P)2019 Tantor

A Tightly Written Fantasy

I've read about every kind of fantasy there is. On thing that always bugged me was the "padding." Moving the story incrementally forwarded with a long backstory on the tapestry on the wall and endless descriptions of the style of the dress. This is not one of those books. It is a tightly written fantasy that brings many characters you may know, Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, and of course the Sheriff, and puts them on a crisply defined stage and tells a story. A good story. There are characters that matter. Issues that matter. A well paced slice of the world where the stakes are personal, the characters, their motivations, and actions are real. You don't "want" to believe in this world, you DO believe in this world. The book leaves stories to be told in this world and I look forward to reading them because it is so seldom you see a truly new and original fantasy book that doesn't drag you on with an unfinished story, but carries you forward into a world you would have more of.

Not what I expected

This was not the book I was expecting. I thought it would be historical fiction about an apprentice scribe; instead it is a fantasy with fairies and all of the characters out of Robin Hood. If that's what you want, it's okay, but not at all my taste.