Book-Thirsty Thursday: Witch Creek, Laura Bickle
Witch Creek from Laura Bickle puts together several solidly intriguing storylines and actually reveals more about the world of Petra Dee.
It’s been just over a year since this reviewer took a look at Nine of Stars from Laura Bickle. Now, here at the beginning of March (well, technically the end of February, but this is Book-Thirsty Thursday), we’re talking the next book featuring Petra Dee, Sig, Gabe, Maria and Nine: Witch Creek, sent my way by Harper Voyager.
This book definitely improves on its predecessor, to start. Bickle puts together a ton of different plotlines — including one that doesn’t seem related to everything else going on until you’ve gotten through a significant portion of the book. However, each of those stories end up quite engaging, from Petra’s search for Gabe to the tale of Muirenn, also known as the Mermaid.
Yes, there’s a Mermaid in Wyoming. Although that doesn’t immediately make sense, Bickle actually makes it work by explaining things like its backstory. Those pieces of backstory actually do more than just fill in the one-off villain’s story, though. It’s great to learn more about Gabe’s history as well as the history of Temperance in general. It seems like it’s a long time in coming — as I discussed in my review of Nine of Stars, there are actually more books featuring Petra that aren’t part of this series technically — but it really isn’t.
Admittedly, there is one convenient accident to solve a major problem in the book, but it does end up having ramifications outside of solving the problem. That could have gone poorly. Instead, Bickle makes sure that the different plotlines do actually end up intersecting, and it’s a strength.
Where this book also shines is in mixing mythologies and different systems. Nine of Stars had “weird West” attributed to it, as I mentioned in that review, and it’s certainly safe to call this book equally weird in the same way. No one understands every bit of the world and the magic that works within it. That opens things up for more interesting types of magic to appear. However, it also means that not everything about magic gets explained, either, and it leaves a reader curious.
That’s probably the design, actually. The ending of Witch Creek certainly leaves things open for a third book in this actual series and a fifth overall.
Next: Review: The One, John Marrs
It’s willing to not spell everything out, and while that sometimes can frustrate a reader, it makes for an engaging, fairly quick read.