Bea and her family are on their way home after a less than idyllic holiday when they’re suddenly intercepted by a mob of hunters who seem to be chasing down three frightened hares. But when Bea winds down the car window and one of the animals leaps onto her lap for safety, something unexpected happens. Somehow, Bea can communicate with the hare. She knows how it feels, she knows what it wants, and when a supernatural force from somewhere deep inside the earth suddenly channels through Bea and forces her to scream out an incantation that brings other animals to the scene to rescue the hares and drive the hunters away, it sets her on a journey that will change her life forever.
Soon afterwards, mysterious strangers begin to enter Bea’s life. One is a boy, a few years older than Bea, who arrives at the local skate park and seemingly possesses talents capable of making his battered board do anything. The other, a young girl, is nervous and needy and knows details about Bea’s experience with the hares and the hunters that she couldn’t possibly know unless she had been there. She gives Bea an amulet of protection, but Bea throws it away. That turns out to be a very bad idea. Although she doesn’t realise it yet, Bea is a witch and now the hunters are after her too.
What follows is one of the strangest witchcraft stories we’ve ever heard – a bizarre coming of age tale that involves shapeshifting, body hijacking, prophesying, golems (like you’ve never known a golem before) and a twisted kind of romance between Bea and the skater-boy that takes a very nasty (and kind of icky) turn for the worse. Author Melvin Burgess has some interesting things to say about the nature of magic and myth in a contemporary world, with spirits and elementals everywhere we look (including trapped inside our technology) if we only have the power to see them, and it’s to his credit that The Lost Witch plays most of its magic close to the chest in a very realistic way. This is more about the psychology of witchcraft than simply bouncing spells around like some Harry Potter wandfest.
As for the audiobook, Kate Rawson is an excellent narrator. She nails each character (her accents are faultless, and very well defined) and she knows how to ramp up the tension where necessary without resorting to over-acting. She’s also so incredibly easy to listen to that her narration goes a long way towards disguising those moments when Burgess’ prose goes schizophrenically off the rails (some of his imagery is beyond “off the wall” but it isn’t until after you’ve heard it that you’ll be tempted to back up and rewind, just to make sure that your ears weren’t playing tricks on you.) It is a terrific audio presentation that more than covers up the few deficiencies of what is already a very good YA novel. Not quite magic, but definitely recommended for a long lazy holiday listen.
THE LOST WITCH / AUTHOR: MELVIN BURGESS / PUBLISHER: AUDIBLE STUDIOS / STARRING: KATE RAWSON / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
