New Book Alert: Where the Witches Dwell (Everlan Book One) by Conor Jest; Effective Epic Fantasy with Great Characters, Intriguing Plot, and a New Imaginative World

 

New Book Alert: Where the Witches Dwell (Everlan Book One) by Conor Jest; Effective Epic Fantasy with Great Characters, Intriguing Plot, and a New Imaginative World

 

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Conor Jest's Where The Witches Dwell is an effective and enchanting epic fantasy with many brilliant characters, intriguing plot angles, and enough unique angles to create an excellent imaginative world.

Roulic is part of a race called the Ancient Ones. Roulic is on a mission to look for his missing family and to help residents of the Kingdom of Doth to prepare for war against the neighboring kingdom of Dandoorthose. While helping some old friends, Roulic is drawn to a mysterious forest where a family of witches dwell who offer their assistance if he will help them.

Where the Witches Dwell has some memorable characters and events that pay tribute to epic fantasy tropes but also are able to make the book its own instead of relying on cliches. The very concept of Roulic and the Witches belonging to a group called the Ancient Ones is brilliant. They aren't completely human, but not elven either. Instead, they are long lived and eternally youthful in appearance. They also seem to be intuitive and are skilled in sorcery. They are separate from humans dubbed, "Mortalkind." The witches for example live apart from Mortalkind in the woods and most fear and avoid them.

Other Ancient Ones adapt. Because Roulic is youthful in appearance, he has voluntarily lived with different families over the years as an unofficial adopted son and worker. After a few years, when Roulic's family ages and he doesn't, he moves on. He doesn't have any long term living arrangements but because of this nomadic lifestyle had plenty of surrogate family members.

Many of the tasks that Roulic faces are well written. Roulic first meets witch and future love interest, Ravenna when he rescues her from a curse in which her hair is intertwined with the ropes of a bridge, thereby becoming a part of the bridge herself.

Another task involves Roulic visiting a kingdom of gnomes. It is nice to see gnomes take an active role in this fantasy series, when they are often nonexistent in other works unlike elves and dwarves who are everywhere in fantasy.

Characterization is strong particularly with Roulic and the Witches. Roulic is the type of hero that we expect from the genre: brave, honest, courageous, and empathetic towards others. He has many mortal friends and tries to help them with their struggles while dealing with his own. He has some great moments, particularly with Ravenna when they fall in love. He also has a dark past in which he has to face up to.

In contrast to the affable and empathetic Roulic, the witch siblings live apart from Mortalkind and mostly interact with each other. They clearly care about each other as when some are put in danger, the others will aid them. They also recognize the larger picture of what will affect everyone else, eventually will affect them. So they offer as much magical assistance as they can to Roulic, but in a standoffish way.

Because of their mostly isolated nature, the moments where the Witches interact with other characters outside of their family are made even more heartfelt. The Mortalkind outside the woods originally were distrustful towards them and now are welcoming because of their assistance. A slow burning romance develops between Jillian, a witch and Callian, a mortal showing how both sides accept and adapt to each other. 

Where the Witches Dwell is an enchanting beginning to a hopefully magical series.