Book Thirteen.

Title: Witch Child
Author: Celia Rees
Summary: Pages from a journal are loosely sewn into a quilt. A quilt that lies undisturbed for more than three hundred years until it is carefully taken apart for cleaning and out of its folds falls a powerful and moving story. The story of Mary - granddaughter of a witch.
Genre: Suspence?
Time Started: 5th March, 7:50am.
Time Ended: 18th March, 7:20pm.
Page Count: 235.
Age Rating: 11+
Warning: Mild violence.
Appeal Rating: 9/10.

This book is so powerful and so suspenceful, it truly keeps you hooked from start to finish. The first two sentences, "I am Mary. I am a witch." just makes me want to read more, especially since I had already worked out that it's set around the time of the witch trials.

Witch Child is an amazing, thrilling, capturing book; so imaginative and creative, from a lovely perspective. All the diary/journal books I've read before have never managed to get my attention - probably because most of them were written by modern day girls, who think that falling over in front of your school crush is "the most horrible thing that could ever happen". This, however, tells the story of a strong, independent girl, fighting for who her grandmother is and living in a world filled with prejudice, where one of her main concerns is her survival, rather than her looks.

While I've never been into diary books, I've also never been particularly keen on books set far in the past. In fact, I don't know what made me say to my mum, "Oh, this looks really good! I want this!" - but I'm not saying I regret it. It took a time to get used to their way of talking, and the old-fashioned way they string sentences together, but it truly was an amazing book. Mary is a wonderful character, careful and cautious, but open-hearted.

I loved the way the journal-styled book allowed me to connect with Mary, let me see the story through her eyes. It's such a realistic story, so powerful and moving, so magical and yet not coming across as fantasy - it fascinates me greatly.

Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. Definitely recommended.
Now, I'm going to go and make a start on it's sequel, "Sorceress". (: