Scan barcode
A review by skredlitheogre
Half-Made Girls by Sam Witt
5.0
Half Made Girls is a rural fantasy book (like urban fantasy, but not urban) about Joe Hark, the Night Marshall of Pitchfork County, Missouri. It is a dark, gritty, violent book, and it is really great. This is my second time reading the book and I enjoyed it more this time than the first time. I was able to pick up more of the story than I was the first time.
Joe Hark, the Night Marshall, is a man determined to keep Pitchfork County off of the Left-Hand Path...by any means necessary, with that almost always meaning the business end of his magical shotgun. Because of that, the residents of Pitchfork hate and fear Joe, just the way he likes it. The problem starts when a group of residents, tired of Joe's tyranny, try to bring a new god to town, one that has promised them a great and many things. Joe must rely on his powers and office of Night Marshall (given to him by the Long Man), the long-dormant powers of his wife, and the abilities of two of Pitchfork's most notorious mages (and a weird old god) to battle back the forces of evil and keep Pitchfork County safe.
I really enjoyed this book. Sam Witt really showed us a character, Joe, who is doing what he thinks is (brutally) right, but is in fact the precipitating factor that kicks off the whole story. Joe's problem is that he thought his father, the previous Night Marshall, was too soft, but Joe's roughness is what pushes the people of Pitchfork to try to summon a new god. It all begins with a half made girl being nailed to a cross in a church and continues with two more half made girls needed to summon the god. Joe fights with everything he has in addition to the powers of his wife Stevie the Bog Witch of Pitchfork County, his son Alasdair, a lycanthrope, and his daughter Else, who can summon and speak to spirits. It is a tough battle, but eventually the good guys win, but we find out in the following short story, "Ghost Hunters," that the victory is not 100% complete.
I found this book gripping and that is was almost continuously entertaining. Except for a few things.
1) There was a lot of repetition. Lines about meth heads, how much Joe didn't want to be the Night Marshall, how Joe and Stevie couldn't be together because of the curse put on them by the previous Bog Witch. It got to be a bit much after a while.
2) The assumption that a fair amount of lore was known ahead of time. The number of times I had to pause reading and look up terms like "yarb doctor" kind of took me out of the book the first time I read it. A lot of the folk magicks were unfamiliar as well and we got little to no explanation about who these people were or what they could do. In a lot of cases, the magic was left vague and unable to be picked up by context clues.
Overall, I really enjoyed both this book and "Ghost Hunters" and I'm looking forward to when I can get the rest of the books in the series.
Joe Hark, the Night Marshall, is a man determined to keep Pitchfork County off of the Left-Hand Path...by any means necessary, with that almost always meaning the business end of his magical shotgun. Because of that, the residents of Pitchfork hate and fear Joe, just the way he likes it. The problem starts when a group of residents, tired of Joe's tyranny, try to bring a new god to town, one that has promised them a great and many things. Joe must rely on his powers and office of Night Marshall (given to him by the Long Man), the long-dormant powers of his wife, and the abilities of two of Pitchfork's most notorious mages (and a weird old god) to battle back the forces of evil and keep Pitchfork County safe.
I really enjoyed this book. Sam Witt really showed us a character, Joe, who is doing what he thinks is (brutally) right, but is in fact the precipitating factor that kicks off the whole story. Joe's problem is that he thought his father, the previous Night Marshall, was too soft, but Joe's roughness is what pushes the people of Pitchfork to try to summon a new god. It all begins with a half made girl being nailed to a cross in a church and continues with two more half made girls needed to summon the god. Joe fights with everything he has in addition to the powers of his wife Stevie the Bog Witch of Pitchfork County, his son Alasdair, a lycanthrope, and his daughter Else, who can summon and speak to spirits. It is a tough battle, but eventually the good guys win, but we find out in the following short story, "Ghost Hunters," that the victory is not 100% complete.
I found this book gripping and that is was almost continuously entertaining. Except for a few things.
1) There was a lot of repetition. Lines about meth heads, how much Joe didn't want to be the Night Marshall, how Joe and Stevie couldn't be together because of the curse put on them by the previous Bog Witch. It got to be a bit much after a while.
2) The assumption that a fair amount of lore was known ahead of time. The number of times I had to pause reading and look up terms like "yarb doctor" kind of took me out of the book the first time I read it. A lot of the folk magicks were unfamiliar as well and we got little to no explanation about who these people were or what they could do. In a lot of cases, the magic was left vague and unable to be picked up by context clues.
Overall, I really enjoyed both this book and "Ghost Hunters" and I'm looking forward to when I can get the rest of the books in the series.