Often I judge books by their covers (as does everyone else in the world, or they’d all be in brown paper bags), and this one has an interesting pastel drawing of a girl and a swan. Honestly, that’s the main reason I picked it up. Patricia Elliott wasn’t an author I’d heard of before, and I hadn’t seen any recommendations of this book anywhere. As it turns out, it’s . . . interesting.

In Aggie and Leah’s world, the Ministration is the main governing body; the level of technology is pre-industrial. In some ways (banned books of philosophy) it felt as if the world was in some sort of dark ages after a period of enlightenment. The religion practiced by the people is one of birds: certain (day-dwelling) birds are good, and certain night-dwelling birds are bad. Birds are also not to be used as food or other commodities, although found feathers can be used as writing implements. Combinations of birds represent certain omens (rooks, although ‘bad’ birds, nesting near a house mean Welcome to Guests) and the citizenry are very superstitious. There is also a story about human beings who wished to have wings, called avia, and who were bound to transform between bird and human, neither one nor the other. According to the religion, they are damned by this.

Aggie is the niece of a schoolmistress (her parents are dead) and when she is offered a job as a companion to the adopted daughter of the local landowner, she takes it. The daughter is named Leah, and she is a bit odd. The landowner is a bit odd, too: his first wife died many years ago and he has been somewhat solitary, other than Leah, ever since. The house, Murkmere, is just as its name implies: a murky building next to a mere (swamp). The house itself is quite Series of Unfortunate Events: damp, rotting walls; dusty; in bad repair; barely inhabited. To top it all off, there is a steward who is physically gorgeous but possessed of a black heart.

A few months from the beginning of the book, there will be Leah’s sixteenth birthday party and coming-of-age ball, and they spend some of the remaining time preparing for this. There is also a plot with the Ministration, who views the owner of Murkmere as little more than a heretic, and also the question of Leah’s actual parentage. At one point, Aggie also learns that her mother used to be a chambermaid in the home, and that only adds to the questions she has about the situation.

The book ends, luckily with some sort of resolution, although it does raise a good deal of questions just before the ending. It was obviously leaving the way open for a sequel, but there’s merely a ‘companion’ book, Ambergate, following minor characters.

Ultimately this book is gloomy, dismal, poetic, but not completely satisfying. The world is a very interesting one and it seems as if what we got was only the tip of a vast iceberg. I’d like it if the author wrote more stories in the world – especially if people really are planning for a revolution against the Ministration (as it seems to think they are). I’d recommend it to someone who isn’t necessarily desperate for the happy ending, who is looking for something that isn’t quite a fairy tale but reads like a retelling of one. 3/5 stars.