When Imelda McGinty, Matriarch of The University of Nature, pops her clogs… little could she suspect that she is setting in train a series of events that takes in kidnap, possible murder, neo-cannibalism, eugenics, a 500 year curse and a hostage negotiation that makes the Brexit talks look like a Sunday market haggle.
All of this within the, at first sight, innocuous context of a story about a school for witches. Do not be fooled. This is no kids’ story, nor even a kids’ story for adults. It is full blooded grown-up fare. The plot rattles along at break-neck pace with more twists and turns than a country mile to a complex and masterfully woven denoument that has the reader guessing to the last.
Carman makes use of some familiar devices in this her first novel: the story within a story, good versus bad (albeit updated to the realms of raging capitalism versus altruism) pantomime heroes (in this case heroines) and villains but it is the way in which she deploys her armoury that is alchemic, positively well……witchcraft!
There is no disguising the acerbic wit… It cuts through like a lemon palate-cleanser after a fatty meat course. Readers beware. You have to be on your toes because the gags and quips come thick and fast; very thick and very fast… The author manages the trick of tugging on your heartstrings whilst seemingly simultaneously making your ribs ache with laughter.
Fantasy? Whodunnit? Drama? It is an unwise man, woman or witch that would claim easily to pigeon-hole ‘Gingerbread Children’. J K Rowling on speed is the closest I would essay. In reality – a moot term in this novel of trickery, spells and shape changing – the book lives in a world of its own. It is funny, easy to read, artfully written and absorbing. What’s not to like?
Bob Elvis, author of ‘Old Friends’, ‘Memories of Mother India 2018’, ‘The Village’, ‘Significant Others’ and ‘Jig Doller’.