Fairies are real. Or they ought to be, at least, according to Madame Bel Carmen's best hypotheses. Her problem, however, is that after searching the world over for the lore to prove it, she hasn't uncovered anything that someone didn't already know. Out of options, she knows her only chance to prove the existence of the Fae is to find someone who's met them, and she's just heard tell of a reclusive scholar who has reportedly done just that. This folklorist is more than just withdrawn; she's nowhere, an academic ghost known only by a few obscure writings.
I've only just started reading fantasy books and I was drawn to the beautiful cover of The Way By and that first sentence in the blurb: Fairies are real. The chapters are quite long so it's a book I read in several small chunks and it took me around 9 hours in total to read.
Holly Walters' writing is beautiful; it's very poetic and vivid. There's a scene with some birds that really sticks in my mind and I snapped the book shut at the end of that chapter in case the birds flew out of the page.
I loved the idea of The Way By, a place that few people can access and it's a place that is in danger. What follows is a battle of good versus evil as the Waysmith leads her fellow women into battle against Clarisant, an evil unicorn. I really enjoyed reading some of the backstories of the characters, although they are quite dark and disturbing, but it shows the strength of these brave women.
Whilst I enjoyed The Way By, I think it is more for advanced fantasy readers than beginners like me. There is a lot of action in the book (and I wasn't sure what was going on half the time) and I also kept getting some of the characters mixed up. I will make a list of characters when I go back to the book for a reread.
Filled with magic and danger, The Way By is an imaginative and enchanting novel that is set in a land where the impossible becomes possible. Well worth a read for fantasy enthusiasts.
I received an ARC to read and review for the blog tour and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.
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About the author:
Holly Walters originally hails from a small, rural, town in Minnesota. A life-long storyteller, Holly is also a cultural anthropologist with a PhD from Brandeis University working in the high Himalayas of Nepal. While her ethnographic work focuses on fossil folklores and sacred ammonites in South Asia, her creative work pays homage to the dragons, unicorns, and fairy tales of her youth.
When not writing, she can be found perfecting her Medieval archery skills, theorizing about movie plots, and forgetting where she left her tea cup. Today, she makes her home in Boston, Massachusetts, with a very unruly garden, a few equally cantankerous pets, a clever spouse, and a resident house ghost. And since her creepy sculpture hobby hasn’t panned out thus far, she is looking forward to the publication of her first novel and the writing of many more.
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