Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott

 Oh dear, this book was a really hard slog.  It started off well enough with a brief history of how during Elizabeth 1st reign the Island of Rotherweird was selected to house these specially gifted children away from her sight as she had decreed they should be killed.  "Modern Day" Rotherweird is still existing and operating in the same way it did when it was set up but with some anachronistic technology.  Vaguely Steampunk but without a definite structure to how the society operates and what technology they have developed independantly from the rest of the world.  To be honest I think this is where the book lost me initially, a real lack of world building.

I am still really annoyed with this book.  The blurb sounded so good and so the sort of thing I love that how dire it actually read still makes me mad.  Even after finishing it I have no clear idea of the actual world this is set in, everything is just glazed over and nothing is described properly.  There is an attempt with the Town Record Keeper to give some cultural insight but that is about it.

Another thing that really bothered me was the almost cartoon villain that is introduced early on.  I won't go in to much detail as then we step in to spoiler territory.  Honestly he felt like the Hooded Claw from the old Penelope Pitstop cartoons from the 1970s.  The magic that is introduced seems to change how it operates depending on what the author has suddenly decided he needs it to do.  Generally an infuriating read.

This review has been a long time coming.  I actually read this book between the 1st and 13th May 2020 so my memory is a bit foggy about all the plot lines.  Fortunately, I have a notebook where I jot some initial thoughts on the book and an overall ranking so between the book blurb and that I did have a reasonable handle on what I thought at the time of reading.

I originally had this as a 2 Star in my notebook.  However, when thinking about it to write this belated review I got so angry about what a missed opportunity this book was that I revised it down to just one star.  So extremely pleased that I only purchased book one instead of buying the full set.