I seem to be hitting a streak of promising and then underwhelming novels.

Rotherweird is a sort of urban-fantasy-edging-on-science-fiction read. The science fiction vibe was something of a surprise, though not an unpleasant one. If I'm honest, I think I was somewhat expecting this book to fill the void cast by my expectations of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, only with (I hoped) decidedly more likeable main characters.

Instead, I got something more akin to, as another reviewer pointed out, a Susannah Clarke. Not a bad thing, as I am a fan of Susannah Clarke's work, but something was off. My feelings towards the various characters were across the board, which I actually quite like. There was a solid cast of characters that ranged from immensely likeable to immensely repugnant (sometimes within the same character). I like that range, and I appreciate the spectrum. Magical realism is always my jam. And yet, I reached the end feeling like I was missing something critical. The ending wasn't especially satisfying, but I chalked that up to the fact that it's the first book in a trilogy.

Ultimately, I think that's what my issue was. The whole book could have been about a hundred pages shorter and not suffered for it, and because it was the first of three, this was heavily foundational. It was long-winded at times, at the worst times really, and I often found myself just drowning in seas of descriptions and world-building. To be clear, this isn't always a bad thing. I just feel it was wasted in a lot of ways on Rotherweird specifically. It never drew me in, and while I think a large part of that was me questioning things at every turn, the other part was that I had a lot of trouble suspending my disbelief on the ways things operated there (something I don't think I've ever done in a fantasy novel where a lot of the strength lies in the setting), then still slogging through all. Those. Pages. Nothing would happen and I'd find myself skimming, skimming, skimming.

Finally we start moving along and it just felt very...grasping. To be fair, at this point I was finishing it just to finish it. I'd made it that far with I think about a hundred and fifty pages to go, and I was still kind of upset with myself for not enjoying it as much as I expected to, still felt hopeful. Not to mention there were only a dozen and a half open plotlines and unanswered questions at that point.

I did finish it, but I feel I only have more questions because the answers weren't all that satisfying. It gave off a vibe of someone guessed the original ending and the author changed it all just to spite them. It was a good read, but I think I'll be skipping the last two of the trilogy.

Thank you muchly to NetGalley and Quercus Books for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book started out interesting for me. Intriguing setup,. Intriguing characters. Curiosity piqued. But the further I got, the less actually happened in it and the more characters kept cropping up. It fell slow and crowded for the length of the book. Unfortunately I didn't end up finishing this, as it didn't manage to hold my interest.

2.5 - not for me. I was looking for a good magical/fantasy novel and hoped this would fit the bill. Unfortunately, the writing felt much like the town of Rotherweird - dead ends, twisting alleys, and nonsensical staircases leading nowhere. I couldn't get plugged into any of the characters or their stories.

I appreciate the darkly quirky world the author was trying to create, the story just fell short for me.

It started out great, gets more convoluted as you read, but keeps you enthralled with the promise of grand schemes and conspiracy.

Rotherweird is a book that’s been on my radar for a while. The cover is incredibly eye-catching. The premise is unique and intriguing, and the story proved to be just that. I can honestly say that I’ve never encountered a setting quite like it. By turns charming and almost sinister, Rotherweird hides deep secrets and a dark past that is utterly unknown to any of its residents. When outsiders, one in the form of a bumbling history teacher and the other in the guise of a wealthy lord who has just purchased the rundown Manor, elbow their ways into Rotherweird and start asking questions, the town faces unpredictable threats and must be protected by some of the area’s most unusual citizens.

Rotherweird might be rooted in our world, but it undoubtedly stands alone. It’s a land apart, and its occupants are both proud of and confused by their home, and its oddities. They are quite literally outside of the law of England, allowed to maintain their independence as long as they adhere to certain rules set into place during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The oddest thing about Rotherweird is that the study of world history before 1800, and all of their own history, is strictly forbidden. The reasoning behind this brutally enforced rule is the central axis around which the story’s many mysteries orbit. To say that they’re suspicious of outsiders would be an understatement; such invaders could inadvertently dig up the past and endanger Rotherweird’s independence. There is also a mistrust and dislike that divides the townsfolk from the countrysiders, which further hinders any pursuit into the area’s history.

One of my favorite things about this book was the incredibly uniqueness of Rotherweird. Though its citizens might be ignorant of its history, they have immense pride in their home. Their events, their celebrations and festivals, are unlike any others held outside of Rotherweird. Their school is second to none, and churns out insanely bright graduates who often remain in Rotherweird and use their intellect towards the betterment of their home. The civic pride shines fiercely all throughout the story. I also enjoyed the odd, unexplained magic at the core of Rotherweird, as well as the history readers were privy to throughout the novel. Both the magic and the history felt very classical, but twisted in unexpected ways.

I’m glad that I finally got around to reading Rotherweird, but while I enjoyed it, I didn’t love it as much as I hoped I would. I found it to be oddly, sometimes confusingly fantastical. The story was indeed interesting and multifaceted and far from predictable, but I was unable to connect with story, setting, or characters on any deep, emotional level. The storytelling often felt plodding to me, and I would sometimes completely miss important details because they were buried in the bloated prose, and I’d have to backtrack to figure out what I’d overlooked. All of these complaints are incredibly subjective, and I’m sure plenty of readers have and will in the future adore everything about Rotherweird. Despite the issues I had with the book, the core story itself was intriguing enough for me to add its sequel to my reading list.

Interesting premise, executed perfectly. Caldecott has created a fun alternate-reality fantasy world full of twists and turns as elaborate as Rotherweird's streets and alleys!

I could not get into this book. I found it a bit dry. It had an interesting premise and the general storyline was interesting. But the details were just not coming through for me. This book kept putting me to sleep! I will probably not continue the series sadly.

5 stars. A fantastic novel about curiosity and corruption.

Ah, humans. We can’t seem to resist the tendency to dig whenever we see a mystery. And a rather weird mystery is afoot in Rotherweird (ba-dum-tssh). A law forbids the teaching of the town’s history. Nonetheless, the facts can’t be entirely buried. Persons with unknown motivations plant clues, leading to a stunning revelation of possibilities beyond life and death.

The story revolves around the themes of the consequences of curiosity and concealment, and of the corruptive force of magic (granted, there is a little bit about quantum physics in there. Perhaps part of the corruptive force is simply curiosity let off its leash).

Vividly charming imagery and quirky characters keep the energy crackling throughout. The female characters in particular were quite memorable, even the ones with barely a page or two in the book. I’m thinking, in particular, of Queen Mary I Tudor. The author packs a lot of characterization into her brief appearance, and that characterization is more nuanced than the typical “Bloody Mary” depiction. The “actress” is another fantastic character, and her exit forever memorable.

Unfortunately, some of the male characters tended to blend into each other, and I’m not quite sure how much our particular protagonist added to the story (although the POV of a baffled professor was sometimes a refreshing one).

Two especially fun Easter eggs for Tolkien fans: a fellow named “Bill Ferdy” runs the local pub, while a more refined version of Shelob hunts to prepare some haute cuisine (oh, she was SUCH a fantastic character!).

I must say, I am puzzled that Book III of the series is currently available on Kindle, while Book II will be released in a few months. Oh, well. Time for me to wait. Does curiosity kill, or doesn’t it?

Content warnings (tailored for Catholics; may not be exhaustive): threat of sexual abuse, implied premarital sex, some immodesty; occasional coarse language (including one use of the f-word); some violence and gore.

"Rotherweird" expertly toes the line between quirky and dark. In the vein of "Harry Potter," the story establishes a bizarre small town, separated from the world in both time and place, with a cast of characters who range from preciously silly, to cleverly interesting, and to downright frightening. While the town itself is rich in texture and fun to visit, there is a darkness behind it that never quite goes away, creeping around under the reader's skin even at the height of silly competitions and fun pranks. The balance between levity and seriousness is well done, and the mystery will linger.

Oh, I had such high hopes for this book. Sadly, I couldn’t finish it. It just couldn’t keep my attention.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book, which I voluntarily chose to review.

Rotherweird is the first book in a series by Andrew Caldecott. Originally released in 2017, this re-release from Hatchette on their Jo Fletcher imprint was published 4th July. It's a substantial read, 480 pages, and available in hardcover. Other editions are available in other formats. The illustrations by Sasha Laika are brooding and atmospheric and suit the narrative very well. The typesetting is masterful; a work of art.

Over a week after finishing this book and I'm still at a loss how to review it (that almost never happens). It's got so many characteristics from so many disparate genres that it defies a cubbyhole characterization. It's not an alternate timeline fantasy, but it has elements thereof. It's not a YA novel, there are definitely elements which are more mature. It's not dystopian, but it is brooding. The character and place names are whimsical, to say the least...much more Dickensian than Dickens would've ever dared to be.

I -hate- to compare books to other books but whilst reading, this gave me distinct Gormenghast vibes with some Terribly Serious Darkness thrown in along with a dash of Harry Potter and a little typesetting help from Miss Peregrine. It's not derivative of any of the above, Caldecott brings his own expertise to the writing, and it is very well written. If forced, I'd say it's the very elaborate end product of a thought experiment which started out as 'what would happen to a population after 550 years of nearly complete isolation from the outside world'.

It's a fantasy, and well written, and I enjoyed reading it and I'm going to read the rest of the (currently extant) trilogy.

Four stars. Worth a look for people who enjoy weird/dark/niche/intelligent character driven fantasy.

Rotherwierd has a very interesting premise. A town that has been given the ability to self govern long ago and that is shrouded in secrets. When Jonah Oblong gets hired as a history teacher there, as an outsider, he is told to only cover points of modern history, as it is illegal to learn about pre-1800 history in Rotherwierd. Enter also another group of outsiders, Sir Veronal Slickson, and his fake family who have moved into town like a bull enters a china shop.

Overall, I liked the idea of the book, but I quickly got a bit lost. The world building was imaginative, but sometimes seemed overly creative, giving more information than was actually needed, and many more characters than were required. It all became a bit much to keep track of. I'm usually a fan of shifting perspectives, and even ones where you have many short perspectives when it is done for effect, but in this book it fell short for me.

This wasn't the right book for me, but it may be for someone who enjoys following a complicated and interwoven mystery. I could see fans of 'Neverwhere' liking this trilogy. Overall, I rate it 3/5.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I'll be honest - the only reason I requested this ARC was because of Hilary Mantel's blurb. I absolutely love her writing, and she doesn't really lend her name to a lot of other authors' books. So I suppose this is why I was particularly disappointed to find that Caldecott's Rotherweird felt rather dull to me. I just cannot find it in me to enjoy "funny" and weird names for characters (this was one of the reasons I gave up on Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next novels), so that was a bit of a turnoff. I know there are reasons for these names sort of woven into the plot for Rotherweird, but those reasons were not particularly well-founded. Overall, the kind of dark comedy that Caldecott is going for is incredibly difficult to pull off, and the blurb by Mantel does him a disservice here, as we might expect her level of ease with the veering between drama and black comedy, when what we get here is something much clumsier. I also didn't particularly enjoy the curiously flat affect of the style. Sometimes that can be a really effective choice, particularly with an outlandish plot like this one (The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas is a recent example of novel where I felt that sort of tone worked well), but too often the flatness simply flattened rather than threw into relief the absurdity or Gothic mystery of the setting.

Now there are certainly pleasures to be had here as well. The historical flashbacks to Elizabethan times are nicely framed and effective. The writing's not exactly bad, and the drawings are wonderfully evocative of the strangeness of the setting. But overall, it feels as if the whole packaging - the promotion, the illustrations, the blurbs by buzzy authors - has been put together for a much, much more gripping book than the one you actually get here.

This book is so difficult to define - it's Gothic, it's fantasy, it's alternative history. I'm having such a struggle even deciding on a rating for Rotherweird. Did I like it? Yes. Did the ending satisfy? Yes - and no.

The backstory for this book begins during the reign of Mary Tudor in 1558. Eight prodigies are born within days of each other; Queen Mary feels threatened, and she demands they be sent away where they can do no harm and are not to be taught. The queen's courtier opts instead to find a place to secret the children away, and a decree is put in place so that Rotherweird is left alone and the people therein learn nothing of their history.

While there are flashbacks here and there to fill in missing pieces, the book is primarily set in the present day and we are left with a murky view of the how and the why until the wide cast of characters begins to put the pieces together.

This is very much a book with a slow unwinding - perhaps too slow at the beginning with a lot of characters to boot. Oddly for me, I had no trouble keeping the characters straight (except, in the beginning, with those whose names began with an "F", for there were a few of them. You must pay attention to names and details in the beginning, and towards the middle, you will be rewarded for your patience.

The book has a fairly large cast of characters with colorful names, and I wish some of them had been drawn as colorfully as their names, but they fall a bit flat and at times emotionless. When a character is found dead in the garden, even the reaction of her niece and the fellow that found her was a bit like one who found their toothbrush in the refrigerator "well that's odd and unfortunate, but there you have it." Even those with more curious natures like the scientists question some things with an evident distance and impersonal feel.

The town itself is a bit of a character and an anomaly. They live in the current day without the benefit of our modern conveniences yet they are responsible for many of the scientific achievements (and weapons) as well as advanced toys (yes, toys) that the outside world makes use of. The buildings have a hodge-podge fantastic feel to them as do their colorful festivals.

Once the varied cast comes together to share information and suss out the various mysteries afoot (why is Sir Slickstone, a wealthy outsider, there and what is he up to, what is going on in the Lost Acre, among other mysteries) the plot quickly picks up pace.

However, in the end a few seemingly big questions are left unanswered or problems left untended to without any appearance of concern. While this is the first of a trilogy, I understand that there was much worldbuilding to be done, but in all, the book was messy. While the story reached a conclusion that satisfied some curiosities, others felt ignored or simply unaddressed at all.

I'm curious enough to know more about the children of Rotherweird between the 1500s and when the town was officially closed off to outsiders, but I think the next book in the trilogy is more about what comes next. While I still have questions to be answered, one big one is whether I have the energy to pick up the next book and find out.

An interesting alternative history set in Tudor England not for me but great for any alternative history lover

In Elizabethan times, a group of children were found to have strange abilities. The queen decided the best way to deal with them was to round them all up and have them sent to the town of Rotherweird. A place with no maps, and no history. They would remain there for centuries, without any connection to the outside world. In a sense, banished. Now, in the present day, two outsiders have been allowed to live in the town.

First, a mysterious millionaire that seems to already have more information about the town of Rotherweird than anyone has a right to.

Second, a history teacher who has been ordered not to teach any facts older than 100 years to the town residents. And whats more, forbidden, under any circumstances, to look into the town’s history.

Obviously, there is a lot going on here. The book is not all fog and mystery though. It also has a great deal of charm and humor. The town’s inhabitants are understandably a quirky bunch of people. It seems like it would be a nice little English town to settle down in, if they would let you. But there is more going on behind the scenes and quite a bit of magic flowing through the area.

If you like strange, mysterious fantasy, this is the book for you. It does have a little bit of a learning curve. I wasn’t paying close enough attention at first and got kind of lost among all the characters. So be sure you concentrate on the first few chapters. I enjoyed the book, and will probably be looking up more books in the series.

Song for this book: Past Lives – Borns

There are books out there that you think you should love, and fully expect to love, but when you finally crack open the spine (or your e-reader of choice), you discover to your horror that the story's a bit of a slog.

That's Rotherweird in a nutshell. The entire time I was reading, a tiny voice in the back of my mind kept whispering 'you should be enjoying this!' To the point where I almost felt guilty about how difficult it was to get through each chapter. On the surface, the story sounds grand: a town founded by geniuses, an ancient conspiracy, oddball characters, alternate realms . . . but the whole thing is told in this sort of halting, dry tone that just sucks all the life out of it.

The story feels weirdly emotionless. We're given a vast cavalcade of characters---who I had little trouble keeping straight, oddly enough---but they're drawn with so little feeling that it's nigh-impossible to care about any of them. At one point a character is straight-up murdered, and it falls upon the reader's heart with the same emotional intensity as a tax audit. The prose is very 'tell, don't show,' with a sort of blase-ness that could perhaps have been meant as whimsical . . . but if that was the intent, it failed pretty drastically.

Overall, this just wasn't to my taste.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

DNF'd @ 20%

The premise of Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott sounded really cool - it totally gave me Peril in the Old Country by Sam Hooker vibes. Unfortunately, the writing style and the tone just weren't working for me here. I managed to make it through 20% before I realized I was too bored and uninterested to continue. Thanks anyway, NetGalley.

"1558: Twelve children, gifted far beyond their years, are banished by their Tudor queen to the town of Rotherweird. Some say they are the Golden Generation; some say the devil's spawn. But everyone knows they are to be revered - and feared.

Four and a half centuries later, cast adrift from the rest of England by Elizabeth I and still bound by its ancient laws, Rotherweird's independence is subject to one disturbing condition: no one, but no one studies the town or its history.

Then an Outsider arrives, a man of unparalleled wealth and power, enough to buy the whole of Rotherweird - deeply buried secrets and all..."

When I book is described by The Guardian as "[T]he love child of Gormenghast and Hogwarts" I am THERE!

I really liked this! It felt a bit like A Series of Unforunate Events for grown ups, with a touch of historical fiction thrown in. Definitely going to continue on with the rest of the series.