The Moonset were a coven that tried to change witch
society. Through a series co terrorist attacks they took out most of their
challengers, killed any witch or coven that could stand against them. They
built a cult of followers.
But they didn’t win. Slowly but surely they were pushed
back until, to everyone’s surprise, they surrendered and were executed. Leaving
behind their 5 children – protected by a curse that prevented them from being
harmed or separated, the witch government was left with the Moonset’s children
to raise
Which is where we come in, following Justin, Malcolm,
Jenna, Cole and Bailey, the children of the hated Moonset, moved from place to
place and held by witch guardians who can barely hide their disdain for the
troublesome teens. Until the latest move to a town where it all began – a town
with a warlock lurking in the shadows, demanding the Moonset children.
Are the teens there as bait? Or as collateral damage and
quiet removal?
Look at that synopsis and drool, folks. A secret magical
society with some excellent world building on the nature and workings of magic,
hints of far more to come. A coven gone to the dark side and executed, their
children bonding together both through unknown magic and desperate
self-preservation in a society that is determined to hold them responsible for
their parents’ crimes. Their close bonds, their anger, their trust issues and
their desire for acceptance all at war, overlaid with a dark plot to try and
draw them into the same dark side their parents embraced. But then, a new
thread to the mystery – maybe their parents were not so simple as was
previously suggested…
Seriously, how could you not write an awesome story with
this as its seed? It’s a wonderfully imaginative gift, there’s so much there,
there’s essences of originality, compelling hooks for a whole story and so many
wonderful things to explore. How could this book not be awesome?
No, really… how could you not write an excellent book
with this?
That isn’t a rhetorical question. Because I’m at a loss
how such a wonderful world, setting and idea could produce this rather dull
book. It’s like seeing someone take a wonderful block of gold veined marble and
making door stops with it.
Primarily, this is because of the writing. It’s very
overwritten, very over descriptive and metaphors and similes have been crammed
in like commuters in a London Tube at rush hour. And even less smoothly than
that one. If you cut out the excess verbiage this book could have been half as
long and much faster moving; we don’t need everything described in such vivid
and exhaustive detail – it doesn’t set the scene, it distracts from it and
focuses on irrelevant minutia. Like the travelling, we’re treated to several
paragraphs of Justin wondering whether they’re in New York state – yes, you
are, now move on! And not only do we have a lot of “tell” rather than “show”
but sometimes the tell is used to try and overwhelm the show. Like Justin muses
how he’s disturbed at how many of their days end with bandages and bleach (i.e.
they get hurt a lot) and we see this by… it never happening again the whole
book. Or happening again before this incident either. In fact, since before
this they were just moved around while Jenna got them expelled, I fail to see
why it was a major factor before.
Sometimes the writing even destroys the mood – like describing
a Wraith in wonderfully creepy terms and then having him have a voice that
hisses like a deflating tire. Really? Because I was with your cinder crackling,
bone crunching, sibilant wraith, only now he’s deflating like some kind of
spooky Michelin man. Less is more sometimes. Or there’s similes that are just
so over the top that the scene is ruined by my mad cackling, example:
Cut the wraith down like it was the first born son, and this was a plague.
There’s no way the author wrote that line with a straight
face.
The book is also hopelessly focused on one character –
Justin. No-one else is explored with any great depth, no relationships are
truly developed and explained or shown. Everything is from Justin’s viewpoint
and most of that contains a lot of telling, a lot of monologuing and a lot of
angst. It doesn’t help that’s he’s more than a little self-absorbed. He thinks
of his siblings – but only in the shallowest ways and usually in terms of
protecting them or, more often, preventing them getting in trouble. He doesn’t
have any kind of friendship with them or even any kind of relationship – they’re
burdens to control and irritations to endure.
It would help if they were developed more – if Malcolm
was more than a guy who went to the gymn, Jenna more than a raging troublemaker
(something which could be developed so well because she has so many reasons to
be angry and resent authority), Bailey the sweet, well, Bailey is sweet, that’s
about it. And Cole the… troublemaker mark 2 with extra angst? The relationship
between the 5 siblings of the Moonset should be one of the defining elements of
this book and it’s completely absent. It’s just Justin – the honest, true, hard
working, worrying, long-suffering Justin who may occasionally crack but only
when pushed beyond endurance; and his bickering , trouble making, emotional,
problematic siblings who Justin is duty bound (and magic bound) to protect and
help herd.
We get more characterisation from Ash, Justin’s possible
love interest. Except her characterisation again exists only to develop Justin.
He’s serious and soulful and brooding and she’s light and silly and random and
snarky – oh, there’s a
trope for that! Then we have the twist to the newish persona – which again
serves to develop Justin in angst and betrayal. Ash, like every other character
in this book, only matters and is only develops insofar as it advances Justin
as a character or as far as it relates to Justin. This made it beyond difficult
to be even remotely invested in their relationship – and that would be assuming
I was interested in any relationship when we had so much else that could have
been developed or advanced.
Which is a problem because very little is and what is
advanced is done so generally through Justin’s endless internal monologues. The
nature of magic, the history of the Moonset, the curse that binds the siblings
together, their parentage – monologue monologue monologue. If he actually
talked to someone for any length of time in an actual conversation rather than
faux-not-really-witty back and forth with Ash and lots of arguments with his
siblings, it would help.
And not a lot happens. There’s no character development,
no development of these relationships, lots of exposition of Justin’s many many
unhappy feelings but not acting on them and not a lot of progress for any kind
of plot. There’s some action at the beginning, then they’re moved to a new
town, they don’t trust their guardians and the Moonset symbol appears. Ash and
Justin Flirts, someone babbles nonsense at them, more moonset symbols, people
treat them like crap for being moonset, then there’s a shop that sells antiques
and more people being mean to them for being Moonset. Even these events are
really minor and brief moments in between… I don’t know. I can’t even say daily
life because it’s not like we saw them spend any great time at school or or or…
honestly I can’t even remember what they
did. I don’t actually think they did anything. I think Justin wakes up in a
morning and has so many and such long monologues that you think he’s actually
spent the whole day doing stuff when he’s really just sat on his bed muttering
to himself. The story just kind of trudges along, dropping huge info-dumps then
now and then we have WARLOCK DOES SOMETHING! PANIC! Then back to normal again
and WARLOCK DOES SOMETHING! PANIC! Then back to normal until the very end when
it all happens at once and we’re given a huge chunk of world building that I
still don’t understand.
Speaking of things I don’t understand – the ending? Yes I get the whole “Moonset, RAWR!” and that there’s some factions in government who, while happy to use the kids as pawns and tools, draw the line at outright murdering teenagers because of their parents so are definitely looking for loop holes. But… boss man brings kids to town to lure out the warlock – with the consent and agreement of the government. Then warlock is drawn out, Moonset kids are accused of bad naughtiness, but he can’t push his accusation through because he’d also be guilty for bringing them there… Whut? I’ve read it through 3 times and I’m still bemused.
There are no minorities in this book and no real
characters beyond Justin. We have the word “bitch” used a lot for the
cookie-cutter characters, and a fair parcel of gay jokes. There’s some
discussion of class, but only insofar as it impacts the witch world – not about
poverty or privation, but the 2 tier society the witches have between covens
and solitary witches.
In the end, it’s a great concept, but the execution is
really lacking. Which is a real shame. Frankly, the only reason I kept reading
this book is that synopsis was excellent and I kept waiting, hoping it would
get better.
We received an ARC of this book from netgalley