It seems like only yesterday when feisty Benefits Fraud inspector Rosie Strange reluctantly inherited the Essex Witch Museum and she’s already encountered some seriously sinister witchcraft in Strange Magic and challenged a terrifying spectre in Strange Sight. Now, in Strange Fascination, Rosie and her colleague Sam Stone are about to run into their nastiest phenomena yet when a centuries-old boulder is removed from outside the local pub and a notoriously evil witch is apparently resurrected.
But of course, that’s just the start of Rosie’s problems. There’s also an ancient double-murder, Elizabethan alchemy and a plague of dead birds mysteriously falling out of the sky to worry about, plus whatever enchanted folk may be lurking in the shadows of Mab Wood (here’s a quick non-spoiler… the faeries of Adder’s Fork (if they exist) are definitely not of the Disney variety). And that’s not all. When a local man is decapitated Rosie and Sam are the prime suspects, and while the residents of Adder’s Fork are literally forming a witch-hunting mob and accusing Rosie and the Witch Museum of bringing all this grisly havoc down on top of them, Rosie’s darkest family secrets are about to be unearthed. Assuming she can survive long enough to discover the answers.
STARBURST readers who keep up to date with our reviews already know how much we love Syd Moore’s Rosie Strange series and Strange Fascination is the most entertaining, intricate, ingeniously structured and beautifully written entry so far. Even better, Rosie’s sardonically witty Essex Girl vibe is more honed than ever, and Moore’s storytelling has once again achieved a level most other supernaturally-themed mysteries can only dark-dream about. She has always been able to stylishly mix-up brilliant storytelling with consummate research, chilling us and occasionally make us laugh out loud while simultaneously addressing many of life and death’s most serious issues – it’s one of the hallmarks of the Rosie Strange series – but this is next-level in every respect. And how Moore juggles a large cast of secondary characters while giving each of them their own agency and personality and avoiding the trap of Midsomer Murders stereotypes is… well… annoyingly impressive. Let’s also not forget Rosie and Sam. They’re still a dream-team of smart one-liners and sexual tensions, and here they’re doing their best work yet.
The Rosie Strange series was originally planned as a trilogy so by the close of Strange Fascination all the loose ends from the previous novels have been satisfyingly tied together, but the popularity of the books means there are now more adventures to come including some Adder’s Fork short stories. That’s great news because although Strange Fascination answers a lot of questions it’s also clear there’s a lot more witchcraft and paranormal weirdness ahead for Rosie and Sam. As far as we’re concerned, it can’t happen soon enough.
If you go down to the woods today, be sure to take your witch bottle…
STRANGE FASCINATION / AUTHOR: SYD MOORE / PUBLISHER: POINT BLANK / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
