This book has some interesting ideas and had great potential. A boy wants to find his missing Mum when he discovers an amulet of legend, that leads him to discover the wrath filled witches, struggling to thrive as humans destroy the Fens and the world. Sadly, as is common with Usborne books, it spends the first twelve chapters hammering home the objective over and over again,(he must find his Mum) so much that any capable reader will lose interest. Such shame. Trust your reader.
Also the world building is all told from the secondary character. It doesn't unfold, sprinkled through the plot. Magic and witch stories are plentiful and created with more pace, humour and skill by Michelle Harrison, Jenny Moore and Amy Sparkes.

I really wanted to love this, but the endless reiteration of the goals was tedious and totally ruined it.

It was the first book i read by this author and - WOW - it was a very entertaining read.
There's a lot of humour and action, the story is fast paced, and the world building excellent. I loved the characters and the plot.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

I have Tim Tilley's preceding middle grade book 'Harklights' on my bookshelf. I've had it on my bookshelf since early 2021 with every intention of reading it (along with many other books that regularly look at me with 'Sad Sam' - pardon the 80s reference - eyes from my TBR pile). Tim Tilley, from the heart, hands up, I regret I have missed out. I remember life back then, just over a year ago, managing a very busy children's bookshop and the rest, and not having as much time as I'd have liked to be able to read. Where many proofs have been passed on or destroyed, 'Harklights' has been guarded - I haven't been able to part with it. When Usborne, very kindly sent me through their October offerings, amongst them all 'Witchstorm' immediately caught my eye and here we are.

What I love about writing a blog is the honesty and openness. I'm now a free agent and can be transparent about my process, my book choices and my hand-on-heart trustworthy recommendations. I know that you all very much appreciate what I'm about as evidenced by your DMs, comments and emails, and I appreciate you so much in return!

About the book
Don't let the timely publication date of this book, a few weeks before Hallowe'en, be your only reason for picking it up off the shop or library shelf. Yes, the cover obviously screams 'witches', however, in my opinion, this is an all year round story. This is a story about nature, about nurturing our Fenlands and meadows, keeping the balance of human vs all other living organisms' planetary existence and survival in equilibrium for all our sakes. For the middle grade reader who adores stories about the British countryside dappled with folklore and magic... Tim Tilley is an author for you to add to your favourites list.

Will, his Ma and Fa live on the aptly named 'Kingfisher', a river boat on the Fenlands. Apart from a duck called 'Waddle' he has a best friend called Alfie, well that is 'had', until a bully called Cole (whose dad is big into carving up the countryside to plant factories) stole him away. Will has always grown up with folklore and stories. His Ma and Fa have passed on their closeness to the land and to nature. There's even mythical a family song about one of Ma's distant relatives from the 1600s who once rescued a witch called Agatha Crow and hid her away from harm - that's an indication of how long the family has lived on the sacred Fenlands.

Ma and Will regularly head out birdwatching, or walking the meadows, but one day Ma doesn't return home. Search parties and police try to find clues to her disappearance and fail. Only, Will has his mother's precious notebook and only Will knows his Ma's ways - thankfully. With his mind made up to find his Ma himself, Will heads to nearby Crow Rock and here begins his exciting adventure. He encounters something his Ma has left for him to find, an amulet - could this be Agatha Crow's treasure? Agatha Crow is real?

Together with his mother's sister, Aunt Hera, an gung-ho archeologist, and a new found friend, Magda, a witch Will's age, Will enters the world of Agatha Crow. Madga introduces him to the Way of the Witches, 'Skycroft' their magical home in the clouds, and the nightmare that is Hildreth - self-appointed leader of the Coven and of an enchanted Witch army on a mission to destroy the 'Grounder' (trans. human) world.

Why does Hildreth want to do this? Humans have destroyed the lands with their factories, driven animals, fish and birds to extinction; rare plants have been lost. He seeks the 'Stormstone' in order to bring about a great change, which will leave witches in charge forever. Until humans developed technologies that led to polluting the planet, witches and humans lived in harmony, trading and leaving each to their own ways of life. 'Wandwood' trees (oak, ash or birch trees with red leaves instead of green) have now all but been cut down by 'Grounders' - these are the trees that supply the wood to make wands and broomsticks, and the magic that powers Skycroft itself.

Once Will understands the bigger picture, his quest to save his Ma becomes a quest to save humanity. He has a burning passion to save his home no matter the cost. Together with Aunt Hera and Magda, he must solve a 300 year old set of clues left by Agatha. He must get to the Stormstone before Hildreth does - "adventure is facing fear, and finding out how far you can go", he realises. Whether it's a story from the 1600s or written today, Will finds out that stories can change the world!

Tilley's energy for conservation and love of nature vibrates through his words and unique illustrative style as adders, crows, wild flowers, reed warblers, godwits or swans and more. The reader is treated to an exciting adventure and mysteries to solve in a race against time and evil. After 'The End', Tilley talks to us about 'The Importance of Meadows' and writes of 'Ways to become a Meadow Maker'. Clearly, 'Witchstorm' carries a vital message to our young people to take care of and respect our beautiful countryside, and speaks to the courage and unified voice they'll need in the future to be heard and to make the right decisions for our planet's survival. I'm looking forward to making time for 'Harklights' and anything else Tilley writes in the future.

Pretty good, yet with room for improvement, this drama speeds past one, which may help the slightly more awkward bits fly by, too. Will and his mother know the family legend, of how when the witches were persecuted in the seventeenth century one of them, Agatha, was rescued and saved by a relative of theirs, Lori Knight. Being secure in the knowledge their ancestor did a good deed is prime to them believing in witches, for nobody else – Will's dad, his aunt Hera, and so on – still do. Yet when the mother disappears hunting the treasure the family traditions say that Agatha secreted around the Fens, Will knows witches are responsible. And Will and Hera are shortly to find out just what kind of nastiness that means for the world…

Like I say, this is a fast-moving action piece, swooping from magical wonder to chase scenes, quest narratives and more. But it felt a little off from early on, when the doubt about witches was knocked off the pages with a lumpen wallop. It's a wallop that makes Magda, a young girl also wrapped up in the drama, a bit awkward to get a handle on for the first few key pages of her time here. The story involves really quite standard genre traits – a character having to learn how to use their powers and fulfil their destiny, another needing a rescue mission to secure a family reunion, and so on – but when you factor in yet another strand of the plot the mesh of them all feels a bit awkwardly woven together.

That strand is one designed to bring an eco-warrior activism to the book – to avoid spoilers, there is a threat to the wildlife of the Fens that gets Will het up, and when that comes into play it really can be quite clunky, cheesy and preachy. It seems it's going to be the shtick of this author, as from what I can read about his debut (which gets an Easter egg reference at one point here) it too had a blend of fantasy and environmentalism. The fact it's cornily done here is a disappointment, for the talent of the creator certainly allows for this to play out utterly vividly in the reader's mind's eye, with many distinctive scenes to be remembered. If I'd felt everything here had fallen in its right place this could have been something I really liked, and I can still see the target readers lapping it all up, but what I read did not have the feel of a wondrous success. And the complete lack of pinning down when this historical drama was actually set rankled with me, too. But still, three and a half stars.

Witchstorm is a really fun magical fantasy novel.

Will is a really sweet main character. He's caring, thoughtful, and he still believes in things like witches and magic, keeping alive old family traditions that say they helped protect one of the last witches in the broads. After his mum goes missing he's fired into action, going to his archaeologist aunt for help and meeting a spirited young lady who might, despite her denials, be a witch.

We're then treated to a fantastic treasure hunt, and I love these kinds of stories so much! There's (possibly) an ancient magical artefact hidden somewhere in the broads, and they have to find it before the evil witches do. There are clues hidden in old songs, in old stones, puzzles and riddles and mysteries aplenty, and a fair few prophecies thrown in for good measure. It's exciting and magical and there's a real sense of pace to the book with the need to get there before the other side do. The whole thing builds to an exciting climax, a confrontation in a magical city that's literally falling apart around them, with the future of witches and people alike hanging in the balance.

It's thrilling stuff!

There's also a really interesting environmental aspect to the whole thing. There are themes around humanity's destruction of our environment and the impact this has on different species. There's particular reference to the fact that we often don't even know what we're losing or what it could have done, as the witches lose plants crucial to their spell crafting. There's a clear and definite love of the rich ecosystem of the broads evident throughout too, really making it clear what it is we stand to lose. One of the most interesting elements of this is that at times it definitely felt like the evil witch had a good point. Mankind has largely failed to protect the environment, and his "rewilding scheme" had a lot to recommend about it. This grey moral area made this a particularly interesting read and I enjoyed Witchstorm a lot.

2021 seemed to me to be a bumper year for brilliant reads by debut authors, amongst them the Joan Aiken Future Classics Prize-winning Harklights by Tim Tilley. A beautiful, magical adventure with strong messages regarding the importance of friendship, loyalty and caring for the natural world, it was a book I absolutely adored and one that I was keen to read the follow up to to see whether or not that gorgeous writing style would be repeated.

The good news is that I enjoyed this even more than I did Harklights. Again featuring a powerful environmental theme and a magical community whose lives are interlinked with our own, Witchstorm is a delight from cover to cover and a story that I am sure will cement Tim Tilley’s reputation as a children’s writer to keep an eye on.

The Fens where Will lives were once a safe place for witches, before hunters arrived and tried to snatch the witches’ powers for themselves. Persuading the people who lived there that the witches were evil, the hunters tracked them down and killed them with the exception of one who was helped by Will’s ancestor, leaving her with a song telling of magical treasure buried close by which has been passed down through the generations of his family.

When Will’s mother mysteriously vanishes, Will believes that finding the treasure will enable him to locate his mum and sets about finding it. He is not the only one seeking it, however, and when a young witch called Magda appears at his aunt’s house, Will is suspicious of her motives until another visitor arrives shortly afterwards looking for both the witch and the treasure and whose behaviour soon leads Will to realise that he cannot be trusted.

Hoping that Magda will be able to reunite him with his mother, Will, his aunt and the witch discuss how best to locate the lost treasure – a powerful, magical stone with the ability to summon storms – and Will and his new friend set out to find it. Along the way they will encounter a trail of clues to solve as well as those who would use the stone for their own dark desires. Can they locate the treasure in time to stop it being used to bring the terrible Witchstorm down on the people of the Fens and can they use it to reunite mother and son?

Will is such a likeable character. Extremely close to both his parents and his aunt, he is bereft when his mother disappears and having been brought up with stories of witches and the song of his ancestor he soon becomes determined to find the hidden treasure to bring back her back. Although he is able to find the start of the trail of clues indicating where it is hidden, before he starts searching he doesn’t really consider that he will encounter modern-day witches – either those who would help him in his quest or those who would snatch the stone to use for their own nefarious plans – but when he does, he soon realises that he would be better off working with Magda, rather than against her.

Discovering that the stone could be used to destroy the Fenland area forces Will to consider not only the effect this would have on himself and his family but also the flora and fauna that live nearby. While he and his family are careful to try to live in harmony with the natural world, it is not true of everyone around him and the story very gently conveys the message to young readers of the importance of conservation of both the animals and plants with which we share our environment.

As was the case with Harklights, Tim Tilley has illustrated his story in the most delightful fashion, making this a fabulously tempting read for those readers who are growing in confidence when reading novels as well as those who already enjoy them. Perfect for Year 4 upwards, I know that this will be very well received by those who pick it up, whether for a solo read or as one shared with a class. As always, the most enormous thanks must go to Net Galley and to publisher Usborne Books for my virtual read ahead of publication on September 29th.