The Black Air

The Black Air captures perfectly the intensity of teenage friendship in a small rural town. Beautifully written, raw, gripping and eerie – this is UKYA at its very best.

Narrated by sixteen-year-old Cate Aspey, who moved to Long Byrne following her mother’s death a few years earlier, the plot centres around Cate’s fragile psychological state and her friendship with her best friend Tawny: beautiful, charismatic and bold.

Cate is a wonderfully unreliable narrator, dry and brittle, but the bone-deep damage that threatens to shatter her is soon apparent. She’s neglected by her father who immerses himself in work, at odds with her new stepmum, finding solace only in Tawny’s company and in hard physical work caring for the animals on their farm.

I love the description of Long Byrne as one of those rural places ‘you can’t see on Google Maps until you really zoom in close. The kind where buses only go by twice a day’. The town is notorious as the location for the murder of Rose Ackroyd and Jane Hollingworth who were hanged as witches on 31st October 1623.

When her school teacher has the not-so-bright idea of re-enacting the events of 1623 in a dramatic staging, at first Cate is drawn in, finding release and creative expression in writing a script that focuses on the intense bonds between the seventeenth-century girls. But new girl Bryony disrupts the dynamic between Cate and Tawny. With secrets of her own, she first attracts Cate and then appears to manipulate her, and the three-way friendship starts to undermine Cate and Tawny’s bond.

Cate’s state of mind deteriorates as the performance approaches, and her grip on reality blurs, the past seeping into the present. As the story reaches its dramatic conclusion, up on the high moor, it is impossible to look away. The impact of Cate’s grief reveals itself in a shocking conclusion, with the threat of real violence. Can Cate and Tawny’s friendship survive all it has endured and save both girls now, or will the terrible past be repeated?

I loved Cate, with her distinctive voice, in all her vulnerability, and the vividly imagined landscape also plays a leading role. The Black Air is a superb YA read that will continue to haunt its readers – it deserves all the success.

Book Review 📚
The Black Air by Jennifer Lane - 4.5/5 ⭐

Like every book, I picked this up based on it's cover. Yes, I judge a book by its cover - simply because I love to be surprised. And let me tell you, I was blown away. The story is extraordinarily beautiful.

I had a clue that there was some make believe aspects, but the blurb on the cover lead me to think it was more thriller. That was a mistake. It's a witch/fantasy/YA. It was phenomenal. It reminded me of Practical Magic and The Craft and they are both amazing films from my adolescent years so this book really made my day as it took my back to my younger years.

The emotions throughout this book are high! It's literal raw emotion with basically everything you're reading. It's beautifully done. I cannot put into enough words how much I enjoyed the plot in this book - following the witch trials and not knowing whether it's real or not but the aspect of it was amazing.

The characters were phenomenal. There were times I absolutely adored them and times where I hated them, but that's the magic of writing a brilliantly perceived character. Lane was so descriptive with her writing and made the characters come to life and expressed their emotions in such a riveting way. It was flawless.

It's such an empowering read with a focus on mental health, trauma and an overwhelming edge to belong! I felt this so much as an adult but my younger self could of done with a book like this. It's beyond words. It's fantastic.

Thank you to NetGalley and UCLan Publishing for allowing me to read this ARC - this is an HONEST review from my own personal opinion.