Hey Readers,
I’ve just finished “Shadows At Stonewylde”, and I loved it!!! It was a reread from when I was around 16 years old I think (so a while ago!) and I enjoyed it much more than I did when I first read it. I think that might be because most of the characters are adults in this story, like I am now. I could understand our lead character, Leveret better as well, because I’d gone through being a teenager, whereas before when I read it I was still a teenager.
5 Stars!!!
I read “Shadows At Stonewylde” for a few readathons again. This time they are:
Reading Rivalry - A book with a prophecy in it. There are actually a few prophecies in the story, one of which I mention below in the spoilers section.
Popsugar 2018 challenge - A book about an antihero or antiheroine. The main character, Leveret is what i call a antiheroine.
August Book Bingo - Unaware of powers trope - Leveret isn’t aware of her ability to predict the future.
My OWLS exams - divination (features a prophecy).
“Shadows At Stonewylde” tells the story of Leveret who is now 14/15 years old. In the original trilogy she was around toddler age. She’s a loner in the Stonewylde community in this novel, as she’s seen as a strange child. She has one friend in Magpie, a boy who’s bullied by his own family. I class her as an antihero or an antiheroine because she lacks courage because of what her brothers put her through.
“She was different and otherworldly, and maybe before he left Stonewylde he could help set her straight on her own journey.”
This sums up how Leveret is seen by others. This scene is between Leveret and Clip, Magus Sol’s brother. Clip is spiritual himself so he can see that Leveret has an energy about her. Clip is nice to Leveret about her spirituality but she gets bullied by a lot of others.
NOTE: “Shadows at Stonewylde” has a lot of nasty behaviour, some abusive scenes and an attempt at suicide.
Spoilers Below
“Shadows At Stonewylde” begins with Leveret and Magpie searching for Mushrooms. Leveret considers herself to be a Wise Woman and aspires to be like Mother Heggy, who died at the end of the previous book.
“It had always been like this from their early childhood; in the village nursery, the clumsy, strange boy with vacant eyes had latched onto tiny, quick-witted Leveret, and the pair had been inseparable ever since.”
This describes Leveret’s bond with Magpie. She’s the only one he converses with and it’s not through words. She can understand his movements. They’ve known each other since they were children. I was hoping for a romance between these two characters but instead they have a friendship bond where they can trust each other, something that we don’t see too much of in YA literature, I don’t think so this was refreshing.
I wrote above that I’m reading this book because it’s got a or lots of prophecies in it. This is one of them, when Leveret professes,
“Did you see the evil?” she asked, her voice barely audible. “Did you feel it? It’s coming - it’ll eclipse everything good at storing world and it’s coming for us now.”
This is significant because it’s the job of a wise woman to prophesy things that will happen. Does evil come to Stonewylde? You’ll need to read to find out. Her mother, Maizie however certainly doesn’t want Leveret to become a Wise Woman. She wants Leveret to become a doctor, like Hazel did in the outside world. Leveret never wants to go to the outside world, though. She wants to forever remain a Stonewylder. Clip, while he understands Leveret’s loyalty to Stonewylde tries to persuade her to listen to her mother, while holding her wishes dear. Does she, though? You’ll have to read to find out.
Another romance that I wanted to happen after I realised that nothing was going to happen between Leveret and Magpie was between Leveret and Clip. I love reading about an older man with a younger girl, however taboo that might be. It’s creepy in reality but in literature it excites me. This didn’t end up happening either though. Leveret remained single throughout, although she harboured a crush on Kestrel, a boy slightly older than her. This didn’t put me off enjoying the novel for what it was, though.
“Although there was someone special she found attractive, this was too dark, forbidden territory where nobody trespassed.”
“Shadows at Stonewylde” focuses on the growth of the characters as individuals rather than their relationships with each other, I think.
Yul is horrible for the majority of “Shadows at Stonewylde”. In the previous trilogy he was sweet and always looking out for those he cared for but in this fourth book in the series, he’s a lot more like his father, Sol, the previous Magus of Stonewylde: cold, hard and unforgiving. He doesn’t seem to be able to see how much like his father he is though, although some tell him.
“Yul knew in his very marrow that this was his destiny, and Clip had blocked it for too long.”
This is what happens when Clip tries to stop Stonewylde progressing as Yul wants it to. Clip is only trying to look out for what’s best for Stonewylde but Yul is very insistent of his ideas, almost to the point of violence, just like Sol would have been. I could clearly see lots of parallels between the old Magus and this older but apparently not wiser version of Yul. I loved Yul before but now in this book, he’s a character I hate. I hope he improves in the last book in the series.
Sylvie, who loved Yul so much in the previous trilogy doesn’t like who he’s now become, either. They have two daughters together called but Sylvie doesn’t want him around them in case he scares them. When they’re about to make love one night Sylvie sees Magus above her, instead of Yul. She doesn’t tell him this is why she’s most scared of him though.
“How could you tell your husband that in the middle of the night, just as you were about to make love, he’d transformed into his late and hated father? In the cold light of morning it seemed utterly ridiculous.”
I really think that a lot of their issues were down to miscommunication on both sides, to be honest. Yul was horrible in other ways than just those including his wife but I think they would have had a better relationship if they’d just discussed what was wrong and sorted it out from there. I mean, they had two children together. Anyone would try to work on their relationship for the sake of children, right? This wasn’t that realistic because of this.
Sylvie and her eldest daughter, Celandine go to a dance in the Outside world in “Shadows at Stonewylde”. Here she sees a character that was banished from Stonewylde in the previous books. How does she deal with this? Does Yul find out? You’ll have to read to find out.
The author did a great job with writing a convincing storyline of Leveret’s bullying. Two of her brothers, Sweyn and Gefrin are the bullies along with Jay, Magpie’s older brother. Leveret is the youngest child in her family so she doesn’t feel like she can talk to anyone about what’s happening to her. Rosie, her older sister thinks that Leveret is just playing up to be purposely annoying as do Yul and Maizie. As I said above, the bullying scenes are quite brutal, like when the boys squash poor Leveret in a cupboard. Nobody believes her when she tries to tell on the boys. This why I think Leveret wants to die about half way through “Shadows at Stonewylde”, because of the torture that she has to go through. Another bully to Leveret in the story is Faun, Rowan’s daughter. Rowan is Yul and Sylvie’s age. She’s the character that the old Magus took up to the Stone Circle and impregnated. Faun is his daughter, which she loves throwing in Leveret’s face, like it’s a good thing.
“What point was there in living? Her mother would never trust her again and couldn’t bear to be near her. Yul couldn’t stand the sight of her and Rosie couldn’t bear to be near her.”
This is Leveret at her most depressed, when she’s questioning the point of living after disappointing her mother and everyone else she holds dear. Her mother doesn’t know about Sweyn and Gefrin bullying her but that’s just because she wants to spare Maizie the heartache of realising that her sons are like their father, Alwyn, the horrible man she had all her children, but Yul with. She doesn’t die, obviously but only because she and Magpie found and ate the wrong sort of mushroom. The intent to die was definitely there. I really liked Leveret as a character and I could definitely see myself in some of her actions. Not the wanting to die, but the wanting to be heard and understood as I felt the same as her as a young woman, never. good enough.
Ten or so years on from the original trilogy, Stonewylde.com is a thing. This is controlled by Martin, who was Magus Sol’s helper. Martin thinks he’s better than Yul and would be a better leader of Stonewylde.
“I’m sorry Martin but you’ll have to get used to this. Outsiders are going to be a part of Stonewylde in the future. Every young person needs to look outside the community for their future parter and”
“NEVER!” shouted Martin and everyone stared at him in shock.
This is when, at a meeting for the leaders of Stonewylde, Yul tells Martin that they’re not going to be able to inbreed at Stonewylde any longer. Before, the people of Stonewylde were able to have children with each other but now they wouldn’t be able to guarantee legal children or people who haven’t had children with their brothers and sisters, which is illegal in Stonewylde as well as in the outside world. Therefore Yul, Sylvie, Hazel, Miranda, Maizie etc think it’s best to invite outsiders in so prevent inbreeding. Martin clearly disagrees, however. There are a lot of political elements thrown into “Shadows at Stonewylde”. This being one of them.
What did I like about “Shadows at Stonewylde”?
* I liked how most of the story revolved around Leveret. She was the heart of the story and the other characters and plot lines revolved around her.
* I liked how the bullies of the story were realistic. There wasn’t any whitewashing to make the story politically correct.
* I liked how Leveret stood up for herself at just about every dark turn, the other characters put her in. She had a strong will, which some characters don’t have in the books that I read. They’re opinions are easily changed.
* I liked how Sylvie stood up for what she believed in. She didn’t let Yul dictate what she was going to do.
* I liked how not so much of Stonewylde was described in this book. I think it’s because we were introduced to Stonewylde three books ago so we know the surroundings now. This novel definitely concentrated more on the characters than the setting or events.
* “Shadows at Stonewylde” doesn’t have a huge event that happens. It’s a character driven story more than a plot driven story. This is fine for people like me who like well rounded characters more than an interesting plot, but for others it might not be your thing if that’s not what your into.
What didn’t I like about “Shadows at Stonewylde”?
* I thought that Yul’s behaviour was really out of character to the previous books. It was like he’d suddenly become his father, who he hated so I would have liked to have seen more continuity of the old Yul here.
* The politics weren’t my favourite part of the story. I enjoyed reading the character’s reactions to the change in politics but the politics themselves were a little boring to read.
Overall, I really enjoyed “Shadows at Stonewylde”. I didn’t think I’d like it that much because from what I remember, I didn’t really like it when I was younger so I guess that I’ve changed as a reader. I liked the more grown up take this novel had on the Stonewylde world that I fell in love with in the previous books. This and the other reasons above are why I’m giving “Shadows at Stonewylde” 5 Stars!!!
My next review will be coming soon...
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