Orfeia by Joanne M Harris Illustrated by Bonnie Helen Hawkins

Publisher - Gollancz

Published - Gollancz

Price - £14.99 hardback

When you can find me an acre of land,
Every sage grows merry in time,
Between the ocean and the sand
Then will you be united again.
(Inspired by The Child Ballads 2 & 19)

So begins a beautiful and tragic quest as a heartbroken mother sets out to save her lost daughter, through the realms of the real, of dream, and even into the underworld itself.

But determination alone is not enough. For to save something precious, she must give up something precious, be it a song, a memory, or her freedom itself . . .

Fantasy I think is the joy of the boundary between our lives and the ethereal – the what ifs and may-bes, our love of the impossible and the magical. Dreams define our own view of reality. Look closely at fantasy and stories constantly live on evolving and yet still chiming with us millennia later. I’ve now read two of Joanne M Harris’ tales based around the old folk songs known as the Child Ballads each time taking one song and providing a lyrical retelling of the story. In the third tale I went in expecting yet another brilliant tale which I indeed got but a wonderful surprise as this time the old world and our own are merged in a quite unexpected way.

The story starts with a short folktale about a fae queen who fell in love with a human and lost him as mortals will always die. In just three pages you’ll feel love, loss and grief and then our story moves to twenty first century London…Fay Orr is a middle-aged woman who lost her daughter; she also has lost her husband. Very little is helping bar a need to race the deserted streets at night and one night she arrives in a part of Piccadilly where no lights are on and you can actually see the stars. This sets a weird trip to the other versions of London that lie underneath each other. A trip where fae royalty are also the homeless, where the dead travel by train to Death’s Kingdom and Fay finds herself being mistaken for a missing royal. She however now knows if she can find a way to beat Death she may finally be reunited with her daughter.

As mentioned, this book really surprised me not just for how great a read it is but the setting. Previously these stories all took place in a standard old-world setting. This time this tale is definitely for me a blending of urban and portal fantasy tales. When two of the homeless we meet are called Alberon and Mabs you start to suspect the fantasy worlds that are blurring but seeing them in a deserted London street is truly magical and strange. As Fay crosses over we move to the more standard magical worlds below, but Fay is a modern woman processing these sights to aid her quest to find her daughter. Messages and warnings are graffiti and the world and characters in it are often shifting form. A broken-down train carrying the dead is both troubling and wondrous and carried along by an eerie folk ballad that offers clues. Harris has really played with what this tale can do and I all fits together perfectly.

Fay is a broken character we first meet trying to find her purpose after losing her daughter. Harris really captures the pain of a parent losing their daughter. Her encounters with the weird both startle and recharge her as she gets a faint hope she can win. In contrast her two main relationships with the book are the enigmatic Alberon and the truly strange figure of Death known as the Halloween King. Fittingly both underestimate her determination and wits despite their vast powers.

This was a wondrous short read where I quickly fell into the tale and loved the feeling of familiar story ideas being changed in such a lyrical way. Harris’ prose sings in this tale powers you along and sets up atmosphere and character perfectly in a world you just want to see more of. This is further enhanced by the gorgeous strange artwork of Bonnie M Harris who really plays with the idea of other worlds where things aren’t quite as human as they initially look.

It is really hard to put quite a finger on this but as we move to Death’s Kingdom the story is a lyrical and subtly refreshed fairytale that evokes the mix of light and dark you can find watching Labyrinth or reading Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. Absolutely perfect reading as we move into the dark nights where we can believe magic dwells in the shadows and also a great reminder that modern fantasy isn’t just detectives solving magical mysteries but can make us just look at our world once again with wonder and also remind us of the power of the human heart to go further than you can imagine. Wonderful storytelling.