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In My Time of Dying
When Eloise Fontaine passed away from a heart attack, she left behind a pile of her belongings, a horse and her unfinished business. It now falls to her twin sister, Ebony, to fulfill Eloise' final Calling, Find the Farm Boy and save the kingdom, before Ebony passes away herself. Goaded on by her sister's ghost, Ebony sets out from her humble cottage to find the Farm Boy and help in his quest to regain his kingdom, usurped decades before by the Wizard King. What's a hedge witch to do?
314 pages, Paperback
Published October 29, 2022
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March 15, 2026
tldr; A dying witch agrees to one final adventure to satisfy the ghost of her dead sister. 5/5
I read this since it was one of the novels participating in the SPFBO XI contest created by Mark Lawrence. (I am not a judge for the contest, just another participant). Out of the 300 books in the contest, I chose to read this one based on clicking through a few that looked vaguely interesting and reading the free sample of their first few chapters on Amazon. This one in particular had an interesting premise and strangely haunting prose that instantly made me want to read more.
The Story:
The story begins with an old crone named Ebony Fontaine, a hedge witch, coughing herself to death as she lives out her final days in a secluded backwater town. Her twin sister, Eloise, died a few weeks earlier. The twins have slightly differing magical gifts. Eloise, (when she was alive), was frequently compelled by magic into undertaking quests that served others, some of them long distances away. Her final uncompleted quest still compels her even in death, driving her to haunt her living sister (Ebony) and finish the job.
But Ebony is not Eloise and is not at all up for adventure. Especially in her final dying days, when her bones creak and the “Bug” in her lungs is killing her. It’s been decades since Ebony ventured far from her humble village, and it takes a great deal of her dead sister’s nagging to persuade her out of it. Finally, Ebony agrees, and she follows her sister’s guidance into finding a horse, rediscovering old acquaintances, and eventually the quarry of her inherited quest. From there, things rapidly devolve into dangerous territory. But when you’re already dying, what do you have to lose?
My Review:
I loved it. Bakelar’s prose is sometimes haunting, sometimes melancholic, bringing a bittersweet sadness to the story that felt so so right. To clarify, it’s never depressing—I’m not sure I could handle a book like that for long. The best I can describe it is an underlying tone of melancholy.
The old dying woman’s last adventure was a fresh and interesting angle I’d not read before. The twin witches’ backstory of being “Vrigoth” is slotted seamlessly into the tale without info dumping, and more of their abilities are revealed as the plot progresses. This is also the first story I’ve read with a living stone gargoyle as a main character (other than Terry Pratchett), and to top it off, the gargoyle was bulldog-shaped. With wings!
I enjoyed how the story evolved from slice-of-life to adventure. It almost felt like a slow burn at the beginning, though it’s too short to be that at only 262 pages (according to my Kindle). I’m normally not a huge fan of slow-burn stuff as I get too impatient, but being paired with the slice-of-life part of the story made it feel light and casual and I had no complaints there whatsoever. There were parts in some of the later chapters that dragged a bit, but nothing too bad, and I was so eager to find out what happens to Ebony, the dying witch, along with the charge of her quest and her not-a-ghost sister, that it kept me plowing ahead.
Overall: 5 stars.
I read this since it was one of the novels participating in the SPFBO XI contest created by Mark Lawrence. (I am not a judge for the contest, just another participant). Out of the 300 books in the contest, I chose to read this one based on clicking through a few that looked vaguely interesting and reading the free sample of their first few chapters on Amazon. This one in particular had an interesting premise and strangely haunting prose that instantly made me want to read more.
The Story:
The story begins with an old crone named Ebony Fontaine, a hedge witch, coughing herself to death as she lives out her final days in a secluded backwater town. Her twin sister, Eloise, died a few weeks earlier. The twins have slightly differing magical gifts. Eloise, (when she was alive), was frequently compelled by magic into undertaking quests that served others, some of them long distances away. Her final uncompleted quest still compels her even in death, driving her to haunt her living sister (Ebony) and finish the job.
But Ebony is not Eloise and is not at all up for adventure. Especially in her final dying days, when her bones creak and the “Bug” in her lungs is killing her. It’s been decades since Ebony ventured far from her humble village, and it takes a great deal of her dead sister’s nagging to persuade her out of it. Finally, Ebony agrees, and she follows her sister’s guidance into finding a horse, rediscovering old acquaintances, and eventually the quarry of her inherited quest. From there, things rapidly devolve into dangerous territory. But when you’re already dying, what do you have to lose?
My Review:
I loved it. Bakelar’s prose is sometimes haunting, sometimes melancholic, bringing a bittersweet sadness to the story that felt so so right. To clarify, it’s never depressing—I’m not sure I could handle a book like that for long. The best I can describe it is an underlying tone of melancholy.
The old dying woman’s last adventure was a fresh and interesting angle I’d not read before. The twin witches’ backstory of being “Vrigoth” is slotted seamlessly into the tale without info dumping, and more of their abilities are revealed as the plot progresses. This is also the first story I’ve read with a living stone gargoyle as a main character (other than Terry Pratchett), and to top it off, the gargoyle was bulldog-shaped. With wings!
I enjoyed how the story evolved from slice-of-life to adventure. It almost felt like a slow burn at the beginning, though it’s too short to be that at only 262 pages (according to my Kindle). I’m normally not a huge fan of slow-burn stuff as I get too impatient, but being paired with the slice-of-life part of the story made it feel light and casual and I had no complaints there whatsoever. There were parts in some of the later chapters that dragged a bit, but nothing too bad, and I was so eager to find out what happens to Ebony, the dying witch, along with the charge of her quest and her not-a-ghost sister, that it kept me plowing ahead.
Overall: 5 stars.
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