I would like to thank Titan Books for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Titan

Published – Out Now

Price – £8.99 paperback £4.74 Kindle eBook

Welcome to the Witherward, and to a London that is not quite like our own. Here, it's summertime in February, the Underground is a cavern of wonders and magic fills the streets. But this London is a city divided, split between six rival magical factions, each with their own extraordinary talents  and the alpha of the Changelings, Gedeon Ravenswood, has gone rogue, threatening the fragile accords that have held London together for decades.

Ilsa is a shapeshifting Changeling who has spent the first seventeen years of her life marooned in the wrong London. Alone, she scratched out a living first as a pickpocket and then as a stage magician's assistant, dazzling audiences by using her Changeling talents to perform impossible illusions. When she's dragged through a portal into the Witherward, Ilsa finally feels like she belongs. Yet her new home is on the brink of civil war: pulled into the fray, Ilsa must use all the tricks up her sleeve simply to stay alive.

The idea of magical versions of our own world is a long-standing part of fantasy from Diana Wynn Jones to Neil Gaiman and VE Schwab many authors have played with the idea of magical worlds just outside the corner of our eyes. If we are fantasy fans deep down in our hearts, we all believe in the possibility of magic. I am always interested to see what versions of our world can exist. In Witherward by Hannah Mathewson we have a promising start to new fantasy series that has the potential to tell some really interesting stories.

The story begins in Victorian London where magicians assistant Ilsa is about to work for her rather sozzled friend in the theatre when she is stunned to see someone perform actual magic on the streets of London. The issue is she thought she was the only person who could do that. Ilsa has the ability to change shape into animals or even look like another person hence now working for the Great Balthazar known backstage as Blume. The day gets stranger when she feels she is being watched backstage and finally the evening ends with a brutal murder and Ilsa being forcefully taken to where she is told she belongs…Witherward. An alternate London comprised of semi-warring factions. Ilsa is told she is a changeling of which there are many here and she is the believed dead daughter of one of the most famous leaders of the groups killed in a brutal attack. Ilsa discovers she has a brother she never knew about, but he is now missing and for some reason a group of people now also want Ilsa dead.

The start of this story is really well told. We get a fascinating character in Ilsa as Mathewson also creates a wonderful sense of weirdness and tension culminating in a quite shocking death that firmly underlines that we are in adult fantasy territory. This is not a safe Victorian London and Ilsa’s assailants and even her rescuer feels a bit different. I was also intrigued by Ilsa’s past and the mystery of this hidden magic. Very strong opening but this gets a little side-tracked in the second quarter of the book. When Ilsa arrives, she is sent to the Changeling’s HQ, meets the key cast and then gets an awful lot of exposition explaining the world, the magical factions, the magic and the history of the location. This section was a bit hard to get through and drained the urgency of the initial opening. Its always tricky in a new series establishing the ground rules but, in this case, I really did question if I really needed to know everything before anything else really happened. It would have been better I think to walk us around and show us this London and not be told about it first. The great news though is after this section of the book it lets loose and really starts to turn into something special and hard to put down.

The cast of characters we meet are really interesting I loved the taciturn broody yet occasionally Charming Elliot who seems the black sheep of the group yet shares Ilsa’s humour, the young brilliant but shy Fyfe who is exploring how you can replicate and stop magic through technology, the cunning definitely not a spy Aelius and the initially very placid but underneath quite dangerous Cassia and their current leader in her brother’s absence Hester – sharp, cold and recovering from her back being broken in a recent attack and the subsequent loss of her powers. This core group really work well each bringing out a different side to Ilsa and helping explore the world she is now in. Ilsa though is just a fun character a Victorian urchin merged with the ability to lie, deduct problems, and pickpocket she is very easily a match for the best of the Changelings and while there is a great hurdle for her to climb, she is fascinating to watch develop and flourish in this world. Mathewson’s big strength is the character scenes where the emotional stories of the characters come out be they hostile, fun or romantic and that’s what really pulled me into the story. I ended up caring for what happened to this group which is always key to a series’ success.

In terms of adversaries the Witherward is amazingly dangerous. There is no central government just warring factions vying for power or protecting their own depending upon your point of view. We have six magical groups all with their own powers and for this story I think the key groups to highlight are the mysterious Oracles who see past present and future all at once – in particular angry with Ilsa for reasons unknown; the dangerous Wraiths who can pass through any objects and for whom we meet the most fascinating possibly an assassin Captain Fowler who steals all his scenes and the strange Whisperers who can hear thoughts, plant memories and make you question reality. These groups are all found to have their own secrets and inner factions so there is a clear number of other stories to be told alongside what has happened to Ilsa’s brother Gedeon. Nothing feels safe and you get the feeling the bigger story is lurking underneath as we see double-crosses, treachery and death are all normal in the Witherward. Also the magical battles are very well thought through and make some great tense set pieces!

I found this a very entertaining debut after the ground rules are set in. It is a very promising start to what could be quite an unusual series. I hope that the next tale relaxes a bit now the rules of the world are set and we can get to having a lot of fun. A series to keep an eye on because I think this set of adventures is going to be a lot of fun!