Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch
J.E. Hunter
What Nessa knows won’t hurt her, right? When her father dies, she finds herself causing strange watery issues and then she is packed off to a deserted island with just her crazy grandmother for company.
Nessa is an interesting character with her own mind, and she truly grows throughout the novel. It’s not just plot driven, there is definitely character development. Not to mention some very nice world-building of the island and its inhabitants.
Don’t you love the cover? It fits in perfectly with the novel, which is that the author has perfectly meshed a ‘normal novel’ into a fantasy world that I could believe exists only minutes away from me. At first I thought the use of a ‘real photograph’ was a bit tacky, then I realised that it was perfect. Have I said perfect enough times?
The title is a little posh for what the novel contained. ‘Tales’ puts in mind multiple stories, when really this is just one. It holds a traditional book plot graph for me, as in several small events keeping the reader’s interest with the novel, finishing with a breathtaking confrontation near the end.
I could have sworn I had made some notes about this novel, but in fact perhaps I only wrote them in my head. I’ve given it 4 strong stars though, because it’s an excellent teenage fiction novel that has the right touches of fantasy to keep a reader’s interest.
To an extent I felt like I didn’t know Lily, despite having things from her perspective the whole time. She is a crucible I suppose, so being empty is part of it. I did feel like her character progressed though. Rowan on the other hand felt very static, although his attitude to Lily changed. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
The first half of the novel kept me enthralled, but this petered out in the second half. I was fascinated by the gymnastics, not by the politics. In the end, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to take away from the novel. Translated from French, I think this novel may have lost some of its charm.
I liked the realistic imagining of the different time periods. Phew, parallel worlds went completely nutty! There are so many ways for people to die, and then be refound. Maggie in particular gets to ‘enjoy’ this particular feeling, which is pretty crazy!
This novel’s perspective can be a little off-putting before you get used to it. It’s written as ‘we’, which progressively gets to be a smaller ‘we’ as the book goes on and more of them lose their powers.
Nooo! Past me, why did you not write notes on what you enjoyed about this novel? I could have sworn I had some notes sitting in my draft folder. Ah well. I can tell you that this was an excellent example of teenage fiction, and I really enjoyed it.
How accurate are the court scenes in this? I think that this author will have done due diligence in her research. But please! Don’t take the law into your own hands! I know that child protective services will often err on the side of caution to not take a child away. As I learnt in 
What sold the first novel to me was missing in this novel. While there were interlocking storylines, it didn’t ‘have the mystery of the first novel. It also lapsed back into too descriptive prose – the one line that has stuck with me is that Logan wears Burt’s Bees Cranberry flavour.
This novel was particularly pertinent to me when I read it, as I had just shown a group of year 9 students around my university. It’s so easy to be mean to other people without even thinking about it.
Considering that there are some situations that could potentially be huge, the writing is sensitive, nuanced, and realistic. It’s just as good as, and perhaps better than, this author’s other novels (I have reviewed 