"The Ragwitch", Garth Nix
Loved the Old Kingdom series, so was quite chuffed when I found this in the library - it's a fantasy quest that feels similar to The Hounds of the Morrigan, or The Weirdstone of Brisingamen.
Julia finds a sinister ragdoll on the beach in Australia, which turns out to be the banished form of an evil witchqueen from another world. Absorbing Julia into herself she escapes back to her own world - followed by Julia's brother Paul, intent on rescue.
The book swaps back and forth between the two points of view as they battle the Ragwitch - Julia trapped within her memories, aided by the people she meets there, and Paul, travelling through the world outside, on a quest to meet the four elements and form a spell that will kill the Ragwitch and save the kingdom - but in doing so, will he kill his sister as well...?
The book does take a couple of chapters to get into its stride, but once it gets going I didn't want to put it down. The only other slight downside is that the ending feels very rushed and almost a bit of a cop-out. You see the number of remaining pages dwindling and think how the heck is everything going to be resolved - usually the case where it all ends on a cliffhanger and there's another entire book to come - but here it's all wrapped up in a couple of pages, which after all the build up feels a bit of a let down. Having said that, the characters and creatures are as well realised as in the Old Kingdom books and I would definitely recommend it as a cracking bit of children's fantasy.
posted by Izzy @ 1:40 pm
2 Comments:
I've had my eye on this one for a little while now & may well start dropping a few hints to hubby for giftie ideas...
I don't know, I was disappointed by this one. Perhaps it's because it was one of Nix's first publications (after The Very Clever Baby's First Reader, which is still amusing). There was something glib in the descriptions of Paul & his reactions, and much of the plot was formulaic. The May Dancers were far more interesting than the humans encountered, and the device of choosing tense moments to do daft, random things like plant pumpkin seedlings or have picnics, became old very quickly. But, everyone says that Nix's later works are great, so I'll have to try them.
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