Review: The Familiars

The Familiars by Stacey Halls
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If I could give this three and a half stars, I would. It's a good, well-plotted book. Fleetwood is a likeable, believable heroine. She does comes across more like a 30-year-old than a 17-year-old, but she's probably the equivalent of a 30-year-old today in terms of her stage in life (married and pregnant).

However, I think Halls is slightly going over old ground. Jeanette Winterson has also written about the Pendle witch trials (The Daylight Gate) and, to be honest, did a better job of it. Though comparing Halls (a first-time writer) to an established writer of Winterson's calibre is unfair; of course, Halls is going to pale by comparison.

Therefore, The Familiars is a decent read and is best judged on its own merits without comparison to earlier works. Few stories are that original anyway and somebody, somewhere will have got there first. It's just Halls' bad luck that someone was Winterson.

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