Disclaimer: before I start reviewing this, I have to say that Hewitt’s first book, The Nightjar, was one I obsessed over when it came out. I loved it. Her writing style was fluid and readable, her imagination seemingly limitless, the characters all wonderful. To put it plainly, The Rookery had a lot to live up to.
Let me assure you, it more than does. We’re back in the crazy world of the Rookery, the one place in London I think I’d actively choose to live in. It exists in a separate dimension, a place where people who practice magic can live in safety in a town that, aesthetics-wise, is stuck in the 1920’s, and it’s now home to Alice Wyndham, our heroine from The Nightjar, who is attempting to master her powers as an aviarist and as a descendant of Mielikki, the goddess of nature.
However, as you might expect, things aren’t quite that simple. Mielikki’s magic is growing stronger and as a result the Rookery is falling apart. To complicate things even further, her old flame and semi-betrayer Crowley (it’s complicated) wants to make amends for the things he’s done, which throws them both together on a quest to save the Rookery.
Honestly, it was a delight coming back to these characters. What I love about Hewitt’s writing is the imagination that brims from it: the world of the Rookery is so full of life and interesting that I’d read the guidebook if she took the time to write one. On every page you learn about another character, get to unearth another piece of lore or get to poke your nose somewhere new, and it’s a delight.
Alice and Crowley’s complicated relationship dynamic remains one of the best things about the book (we don’t get enough Crowley in the first half of this book, which is understandable but still frustrating) and when they’re together, the pages fizz. I don’t think I’ve ever rooted quite so hard for two characters to get away; Hewitt is a master of the slow burn. Aside from that, I loved Alice’s character development. We left her in a dark place at the end of book one, mourning the death of her best friend Jen, and this book is all about her coming to terms with her identity. She’s a great heroine: flawed, capable and ever-changing.
It also helps that Hewitt’s writing is compulsively readable. She has a capacity for throwing plot-twists at you from out of nowhere, and the end of The Rookery is an absolute rollercoaster that I read so fast I had to go back and re-read to properly digest.
Just as magical as The Nightjar, this book is yet another gem from Hewitt. My only complaint? That it wasn’t longer.
The Roaring Bookworm 