Scott Graham

A charming tale of the intersection of the real world and the faerie world, told from the perspective of sisters, one who is able to straddle the two worlds and the second who, like the willows they tend to, is firmly rooted in the real world. I didn’t appreciate the gender politics in the story which otherwise detracted from the power of the musical folk tale. Male suitors bad, female suitors good. I might have written my thoughts off as possibly overwrought, except the bonus story, called John Hollowback And The Witch included from a subsequent short story collection, contained the same moral: male suitors bad, female suitors good. All of that is not to say that there is something inherently wrong with that lesson per se, but it was not my cup of tea.

Wow… This book deserves 6, nay 10 stars. Twelve children are taken from their families to be taught by “father”, a man of unbending standards and draconian methods. There is an immediate sense of something *like* magic in the air as the ultimate “Lord of the Flies” plays out and coincidences accumulate. The fantastic meets the mundane as talented people of the real world act with and against the adult versions of the 12 children who have all been taught special yet differentiated skills in the titular place of higher learning by a “father” whose person, values, and methods are revealed in flashbacks - because “father” is missing. Did he leave? Was he taken? Are his enemies involved? Fantasy meets cosmology meets suspense in the Garrison Oaks development with the Library at Mount Char at its center.