This is fantasy and is the second in a (currently) 2 book series.

These books centre on a family.of Fairy Smiths they protect the village and the surrounding areas from the fae through smithing.

This book really focuses on the grandfather and the relationship he had with his own father who was a terrible man, and who vanished more than 40 years ago.

And he's just turned up, looking exactly as he did back then.

The family have to figure out how to deal with this man who is essentially going to destroy everything they love if left to his own devices, and also this very difficult fae who has escaped.

I enjoyed this, although it is a very long book at 640 pages and the lack of chapters takes away natural stopping points. I do enjoy this world though, and with the story being told here it almost feels like you're getting two books in one across the 2 time periods.

The spider character who talked in riddles was a bit too much for me to understand though!

4 stars, I would happily read more in this world (preferably with chapters)

I didn't know it was the second in the series when I asked for the ARC (my bad!) but I finally made my way through book one then two and I'm not disappointed. It was just a little confusing at the beginning! lol

I loved this series, both instalment as it's original and well plotted. The author is a talented storyteller and I was to say goodbye to this world and to the smiths
An excellent fantasy series
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Can a story be both whimsical and terrifying? Heart-stopping and heartwarming? Magical but all too real? If it’s All the Hollow of the Sky by Kit Whitfield then the answer is YES to all the above.

I chose to read this because the blurb advertised a talking pig and I thought that would be fun. I wasn’t wrong since Left-Lop is fun but I got way more than I bargained for in all the best ways. I started reading this story and felt like I was sitting around a campfire listening to my grandpa tell a story. The tone of this book is whimsical like that, it draws you in and it meanders here and there just the way you would hear it told. It grabbed my attention and kept it and before I knew it I was invested in the lives of a whole family tree.

The whimsical tone almost tricks you, luring you into a sense of security, it almost croons to you the same way as the child-stealer in the story tricks the unsuspecting in the mist. You don’t want to believe that a world so interesting and full of wonder, full of magical fae, could have bad things until the horror of it hits you all of a sudden. At least that’s how it felt to me. When I met Ab I refused to think its gifts were bad. When I met Corbie, I was determined to think him smart for his solution. So I had to pivot on my opinions many a time and that didn’t stop throughout.

If I hated a character, the author showed me their goodness or their woe and if I loved another, the author would bring all their faults out to see. No human character was allowed to be one dimensional. The fae were by contrast stubbornly so and that was the point I think. I loved following the story of this family and was genuinely so frightened when they were in peril. Sometimes even when just their happiness was in danger. There are so many moments in this story where I felt as helpless as the characters in the face of evil in your own family. It’s so hard to be faced with abuse from those who should love you and so terrifying when your abuser suddenly has access to a pet monster!

All’s well that ends well and the ending to this story was a brilliant bit of genius cementing it in my head as one of the best literal fairy tales I’ve ever read.

All the Hollow of the Sky is the second of Kit Whitfield's Gyrford books, following a family of fairy smiths in the town of Gyrford as they deal with the various supernatural problems that are their purview, and the more mundane (but no less troublesome) problems they have in amongst themselves. In this one, the long absent father of Jedediah, the Smith patriarch, has returned looking suspiciously unchanged after his disappearance, though with some rather worrying differences in how he perceives the world. Unfortunately, though some things are different, the way he treats his family hasn't changed one bit, no matter how they've grown up without him, and they must together find a way to deal with the resumption of his tyranny, as well as the very real fey problem that's come back with him.

There's a lot to recommend about this book, and a lot I enjoyed - I stayed up until 5am to finish reading it - but it's not an uncomplex positive. While I'll come back to its better qualities in a moment, I want to linger on the main issue that bothered me the whole time I was reading, and it was one that was a mixture of pacing and tone. Put simply, about 85% of the book felt like prologue or backstory, and only the final bit felt like we were really grappling with the actual plot.

There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, there is just a lot of backstory needed to set the scene for what's happening. We need to understand the absent father, Corbie, and how he fits into the story of the family, and why they fear his return. We need to understand the context of his initial disappearance. And unfortunately, a lot of this context is delivered in substantial, discrete chunks, as a story told to a listening child in some parts, rather than being woven in to a more present narrative, and so in the early parts of the story, it's hard to tell which "present" is the one we're meant to be in, because we spend so much time in other ones learning how things came about, whether the childhood of Jedediah and his relationship with Corbie, or even earlier with the events surrounding the childhood of Jedediah's mother and aunts. And I don't dispute that these are all necessary pieces of the puzzle to understand the present story - it's one that's meant to be woven deep in the family's history. And I don't dispute that the backstory and flashbacks are well written, and enjoyable to read. But the way they interface with the present plot just doesn't work well with how we approach the novel, and leaves it with very strange pacing that only really settles when the action truly kicks off near the end.

The second issue feeding into this is exactly that pacing - whether by necessity of that delivery of backstory or just by choice, Whitfield has written this to be a slow, gentle, meandering book. Which, in some ways, is lovely. It roots us all the more deeply in the family and its problems, and gives us a really strong sense of the characters and who they are to each other and to the town. But when coupled with all of that backstory that occupies so much of the book, it leads to us dwelling on it even more, expanding its proportion to fill up even more of the perceived space. And it just leaves the reader feeling off balance - constantly asking "are we there yet?" and constantly being told, no, you need to know more of the background before you can truly understand. And that's... frustrating.

I think I almost would have liked the story to be reframed, not as a narrative in the "present" with extensive backward glances for context, but instead a narrative that just happened to be episodic, set across several time periods (perhaps told in a non-linear way), to allow it to feel less distracted from what it is clearly centring as the "main" plot. There wouldn't need to be even a particularly substantive shift in focus to achieve that, just a little bit of shimmying to go from weirdly off-balance to neat, and I think that somehow made it worse while I was reading - it was so close to being so good that it just kept niggling at me, as well the constant feeling of "well, are we going to get to the actual story yet then?".

But! If I leave that aside, there's a lot here to recommend it. I think the way Whitfield approaches the fey is great, having them be more on the folkloric side, and run a pretty wide range from sentient and helpful to magic animals to forces of nature, as well as a wide range of emotional attitudes and relationships with humanity. They're a complex, specialised set of problems that need a complex set of training to approach and interact with, and that really illustrates the need for, and the skill of, the central family of smiths.

What's also done well is how those smiths fit into the wider community - they are not isolated problem solvers, cut off from the mundane world except to swoop in as heroes. They live in the community, have friendships and relationships with their neighbours, and their work intersects with daily life. The "present day" events of the story are set around the Clementing, a festival in which the smiths place iron wreaths on graves in the churchyard to prevent fey interference, but it's also a festival they take part in alongside their neighbours, the same as their neighbours - they cook, they bake and they celebrate. I really enjoy seeing in the story the magical problem solvers being fully situated in their place and people, because so often with stories, the magical side of things is hidden, or restricted or so dangerous that others can't know about it, so we rarely see how it might intersect with just... normal life. This also allows Whitfield to weave in some of the traditional mythos around smiths and how they relate to fairies, because we see it in the behaviour of the people around them. Especially considering the heaviness of the backstory, it was nice to see the worldbuilding dealt with more subtly in this way.

And finally - and critically for me - the characters are lovely. Because we spend so much time with them, with their concerns, in the build up, we have the space to grow to love them, and they are worth loving. They are flawed, and interesting, both in ways relating to and independent from the fairy influences on their lives. They also speak with unique, recognisable voices from the page, and Whitfield has done a particularly good job of giving them localised-seeming accents without it ever straying into parody, as often happens when non-RP English is represented in fiction without due care. We spend enough time with Jedediah, with Matthew and with John that they all become properly fleshed out characters, and with their own interesting perspectives on their problems and the world, and it gives us a really beautiful triangulation on those problems. When Jedediah is too closely tied into his own emotions about Corbie, seeing things from John's perspective shifts the narrative, and then Matthew's exasperation with John balances out his own frustrations with the way the others solve problems.

And so, in many ways, it works wonderfully - as a study of characters and their relationships, as a work of fantasy building on traditional fairy and smith lore, as a story heavily rooted in a place and a people. It's just unfortunate that the framing and pacing mess so substantially with the reader's enjoyment of the story that it rather throws everything else off kilter. That being said, I had a lot of fun reading it when I was immersed in it, and the other parts were sufficiently enjoyable that I would definitely read another of Whitfield's books, as the problem feels very specialised to how this particular story needed to be told.

Thanks To Netgalley, Quercus, and Jo Fletcher Books for the arc. I found this book very slow-paced, and much of it repeated itself. I didn’t feel connected to the characters and felt the pacing was too slow. I also didn’t like how ” thirty and one years ” and “dada” was used throughout when the explanation of the story as I found this extremely off-putting, and it ruined my reading experience.

The book appeared to be jerky.
At times, the novel deviated from the plot. The narrator in one section seemed to shift with each paragraph. These characteristics of the book, as well as the writing style, made it a frustrating read. Ab, imprisoned and then released, made for a fantastic narrative with a beautifully dark character. No One was a tremendous magical character – unique, intelligent, and intriguing. I saw the first book had favourable reviews, so I’m confident many people will also appreciate this one. Based on my reading, I believe it could also be read as a standalone. Perhaps I’m too impatient, which would suit people who prefer to take things slowly.

4.5/5
Thank you to the author and publisher for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for an honest review!

I later learned that this is the second book in a series (but it could be easily read as a standalone, as it still gave me a good understanding of the world and the characters), so while reading my review, keep in mind that I haven’t read the first book.

The worldbuilding and magic system: 4.5/5
Seeing as I haven’t read the first book, I may have missed some things, but even so, the worldbuilding was great and I had a solid understanding of it. It’s set in a small town, and there isn’t much knowledge given about the outside world, but that didn’t seem relevant to the story. Overall, the setting is great; it has a real “cozy fantasy” feel, only with higher stakes, and I really like how the faeries are integrated into the story. They actually feel like an otherworldly creatures, and I like how their actions really affected the world around them, including the characters. For example, Ab’s ‘gifts’ for the women did really affect them, especially Constance.

The characters: 4/5
I liked the characters, but they didn’t particularly stand out to me. Most of them were well-written, and developed, but perhaps there were too many. There were a couple who didn’t seem very relevant to the plot and I found myself forgetting about. I’d like to see more development for some of the side characters.

The plot: 4/5
I quite enjoyed the plot, but the pace did throw me off. It had a rather slow start - which was enjoyable to read, but felt very long - then the pace got a bit faster around the middle, and then even faster towards the end. I did find the end a bit confusing, but I understand the basics of what was going on. The plot of this story was unique and interesting, and I definitely recommend this book to anyone who’s more into the “creepy” side of the faerie subgenre.

This book is generally about the family of the fairy-smiths who are, and have been, in Gyrford for many years. The book features quite a number of generations of the family and stories that involve them. Corbie Mackem was the smith there for many years and protected the folk in the area from the People and magical problems generally. When he walked out his son Jedediah took over the job and the smithy. He is probably at the core of this story though his son and grandson are also part of it. Gyrford is probably in a rural England of earlier times and the language has an older feel to it.

At the core of this story is Ab. Ab is a magical entity and "granted" powerful and unwanted gifts on people. Corbie effectively dealt with him by imprisoning him however mystery abounds here. People who were affected still are and are still alive. Ab's location is somewhat secretive. Magic doesn't go away sometimes but will the fairy-smiths generally and Jedediah's family be able to solve this problem for once and for all?

I can honestly say that I thought most of the characters were really good. I liked the magic aspect of this a lot and the stories told during the course of the book were good and mainly held me well. Some of the writing/phrasing was excellent and the ideas here were very creative. So far so good.

However there really is a complex cast of characters to get to know here. This was a review copy so what I think is the main family tree at the start of the book was not working in my ARC. I must stress that, while it would have been great to have this, the lack is not reflected in my rating of this book. Initially though getting to know these characters through the rather old feeling language did make this feel rather a slow read. The book seemed somewhat jerky. I got a really good story line that held me well and then that one ended and it felt as though there was a slump.

The book went off at tangents to the story at times. In one section the narrator seemed to change with each paragraph. These aspects of the book and the writing/language style generally made this a frustrating read for me. There was much to like. Ab, imprisoned and then free again, made for a great story and was a wonderfully dark character. No One was an excellent magical character - original, clever and interesting. But it was as though a brake was applied to me reading and this broke the "magic" for me. I see the previous book was well reviewed so I'm sure many will enjoy this. From my reading of this one I think it could easily be read as a standalone book too. Maybe I'm too impatient and this would suit people who take things slowly better.

Review in progress and to come.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review