Book Review: Blackbirch – The Beginning by KM Allan
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I follow this author’s blog and I love the confidence she conveys on her website. Blackbirch, her debut novel, doesn’t have quite the same poise but you can see where she was trying to go and hopefully she will get there as the series continues.
I was given an ARC (Advance Reader Copy) in exchange for an honest review of this book. I read the ARC. It was okay. I wrote a review saying that. I offered the author the option of not posting it. She didn’t accept, which I thought was very gracious, but asked me to hold off on posting it until after the official release of the book. And then I watched as she posted tweet after tweet about all the changes she was making in the lead up to the release date. If it was changing that much, I didn’t think it was fair to post the review I’d written. So when the book came out, I bought a copy and read it again. I’m glad I did. It’s not an entirely different book and it’s not perfect, but it was enough of an improvement to make me want to rewrite my original unposted review.
Josh Taylor has been sent to live in Blackbirch with his mother’s best friend, Grace, and Grace’s daughter, Sarah, after the death of his own parents in a car accident. He wasn’t in the car at the time of the accident – at least, that’s what he’s been told – but he doesn’t really remember because he’s suffering from some kind of psychologically-induced partial amnesia. He knows who he is but a lot of other things are very hazy.
Blackbirch is a regional town that relies on tourists and what brings the tourists in is its reputation as a location for witchcraft and magick (note the “k” on the end – magic is what magicians do but magick is real and powerful). Grace runs a store selling candles and herbs and spellbooks and other magick ingredients. Sarah helps out after school but she isn’t a believer. Eve, Sarah’s former friend, works there as well and she believes big time. Josh has never given much thought to any of it.
But weird things are happening. A girl named Kallie is coming to Josh in his dreams, warning of a dark presence and possible danger. Just touching a sacred crystal or a spellbook for a moment sends a power coursing through his body that he can’t control and doesn’t know how to explain. Phantom pains in his shoulder plague him. And something is drawing him to a house deep in the woods that everybody else says doesn’t exist.
Josh needs answers – the truth about his parents’ car accident, about who he can trust, about what exactly is going on – but how far will he have to go to get them? And who will get hurt in the process?
The premise is captivating and the world building that has gone into the town of Blackbirch is terrific. The setting is enticing, somewhere we’d probably all be intrigued by. There’s something a little Blair Witch about the place but without the serial killer vibe, a little Salem but without the finger pointing, hysteria and witchcraft trials.
The characters are a little underdeveloped, I think because they’re all competing for limited space. Because of this underdevelopment, Josh doesn’t really seem interested in the missing parts of his identity. Sarah trails him around like a puppy dog, bounding at his heels in an effort to cheer him up, like he’s having a bad day instead of a bad year. Max, Sarah’s next door neighbour who is obviously in love with her, is pretty much superfluous. He misses out on all the important moments of the story and could easily be removed. Kallie… well, since she only comes to Josh in his dreams, we’re not even sure if she’s a real person.
Eve is the most successful character – and the best interactions are between Josh and Eve – but her motivations aren’t properly explored. She hovers between understandably guarded and inexplicably power hungry. Arden Flynn, the high school guidance counsellor, is the most well-rounded and best written character but he’s an adult and we’re really here for the teenagers. It is a young adult book, after all.
The plot is a little haphazard, the writing is a bit melodramatic, the structure could be tightened and there are a few handfuls of typos (although not too many to forgive) but it gets there in the end. There’s an in-your-face cliffhanger that means you have to buy the next book to get any sort of closure but if you like urban fantasy, witches and magick, then you probably won’t mind (and it’s reported to be coming out in 2020 so you won’t have to wait too long).
In a few words: a promising start from which to continue.
3 stars
*First published on Goodreads 24 February 2020
