The Crowfield Curse by Pat Walsh

If the deepest secret has been spoken…can the deadliest curse be broken?

 

Right off the start, I knew I’d love this book. It has a cover that appeals to me and that represents the words between the covers perfectly! Right underneath the heading of the first chapter the author gives you the year and the season as the winter of 1347. It immediately puts me in the mind of a cold day, likely snowing in a year well before any modern conveniences. Centuries before the Civil War or even the American Revolution.

Then I read the first sentence: “William crouched behind the fallen oak tree and listened. Close by, someone-or something-was whimpering in pain.” 

Now we know that our main character’s name is William, that the story is told in third person, and that we aren’t going to have to sit through three pages of a stuffy prologue. We’re in the middle of the action and Walsh has given us a great opening line. It really grabbed my attention and pulled me into the book.

This book was titled well in my opinion. The plot revolves around the death of an angel about one hundred years ago and the monks of Crowfield Abbey and a man from Yagleah are the only ones who know it. Knowing that God’s angels can be slain is The Crowfield Curse. It shakes their beliefs and they fear word getting out. Shadlok, the Seelie Fae has accompanied his master Jacobus Bone to the abbey so they can find the angel’s grave. Will is a human boy who has the Sight and befriends a hob, who he names Brother Walter. Together Will has to fight the Dark King of the Unseelie Court and find the angel’s grave. 

That’s a rough sketch of the book’s plot but it doesn’t really do it justice. While reading, I had a hard time defining the motives of Shadlok. He seems to despise all humans but he conducts himself as the manservant of Bone who is in fact human. At the end of the book, I learned that the Dark King had cursed Shadlok to be bound to a human until the King releases him. I’d hate to spoil the ending of the book, so I won’t go into more detail but there is a sequel to the book titled The Crowfield Demon and both Shadlok and Will play major roles in it. 

I’m not much of a fan of Fae books, but this one was an exception. It took me about three hours to read the 319-page book and I’m glad that I started reading it early because otherwise I would have been up late into the night reading it when I should be in bed. It definitely has reread value and until I get my hands on the sequel, I might just have to open it up again. I see this as a wonderful start to the series. 

If you were a Fae would you be Seelie or Unseelie?