My lovely friend, Kate Steadman, sent me this book with a little note attached saying......"I've popped this book in because you mentioned A Discovery of Witches (which I loved!) I read Half Bad a few weeks ago and it really made me think of Deborah's book. The characters are younger in this book but I was gripped from the start - think I read it in just over a day!"..........so, I couldn't wait to start reading it!
Half Bad is the first book in a Trilogy by Sally Green called Half Life. It is a uniquely, spellbinding story about a boy, Nathan, who is unusual in a divided world of White and Black witches. His mother was a white witch and his father is the most infamous and sought after black witch, Marcus Edge. Because of this, Nathan is known as a Half Code and is shunned by all in the community of white witches he lives in. Not long after he was born his mother committed suicide and so his gran became his carer and brought him up along with his two half sister's and his half brother, Arran. His brother and gran are Nathan's only source of affection, and everyone else, other than a white witch school friend called Annalise, hate him and he is set apart often for taunting or a beating.
Black witches have been almost hunted out of existence in Europe and The Council of Witches of England, Scotland and Wales, which runs the white witch community are determined in their quest to catch Marcus Edge. They don't really know what to do with Nathan but they recognise he is valuable to them in their quest.
This story is dark and haunting. There are very few chinks of light in Nathan's life. I am a little squeamish in my entertainment tastes. I choose not to watch violent films or read horror stories because I don't do violence very well, but, even though this story is brutally violent in parts, it is entirely compelling and I just couldn't put the book down. At one point I had to stop reading and calm my heartbeat down because I was so scared for Nathan. Half Bad is perhaps the best book I have read this year and I am looking forward to the next one in the series.
9.9/10
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