A Fantasy Adventure Novel By David Bramhall
Once upon a time, little Kitty was travelling from her boarding school near London back to her hometown of Strathtay, all the way to Scotland. But she wasn’t going alone: at King’s Cross station, she was going to meet with her older brother, Jake, and sister, Ellie, whom, at the age of 16, was the oldest of the three and somehow the one in charge of the safety and wellbeing of her siblings. No, this is not a fairytale.
A terrible snowstorm hits London – and if the weather is so bad in the South, it will only get worse travelling North. After many trains are cancelled and their only hope is one for Edinburgh at 5pm, they decide to take advantage of the eight hours waiting time and go to Hamleys. They are kids after all. Once in the shop, Kitty notices a nice old man with white hair that is playing tricks for the public and, given the lighting and the fact she is reading a book about King Arthur, Merlin and Morgan, she almost thinks the old man is one of the most important mages before Harry Potter’s arrival.
Kitty and her siblings follow him, lose him, find him again on their same train and end up stuck with him when the train stops because of the weather, leaving them stranded an hour from London and still too far from home. This funny old man, though, is not what he seems, and Kitty’s suspicions on his identity gradually materialise.
Eventually, Kitty, Jake and Ellie will manage to travel all the way up to Scotland finally joined their mother (no child, fictional or real, was harmed in the production of this story), but it won’t be an easy process. During their journey they will meet different figures coming from different historical periods (King Arthur and his court, Civil War participants, Word War One soldiers, Romans), all of which will interact with each other without questioning their differences, in outfits, weapons or language.
And this is probably where the cookie (story) crumbles. While it is perhaps understandable – as one of the World War One characters within the story explains – that people in the past especially did not have any knowledge whatsoever of what existed beyond the boundaries of their own little villages/realities so no way to really put into question what they see – I found this to be a ‘cheap trick’ and a poor strategic choice that doesn’t really resolve the fact that some of the players might have had basic historical knowledge to pin at least some of the characters to their rightful timeline.
Besides, after so much adventure, risky situations and unpredictable characters, the ending falls flat and feels rushed, depriving the reader of that fulfilling come-down after a rush of adrenaline that leaves them satisfied and happy to move on with their life. The idea is good, all in all, and the narration is clear, but it could have benefitted from an extra polish to tighten the story, trimming all the unnecessary words that only weight it down. It is nonetheless a notable effort, and definitely we will read the rest of the series too.
‘Kitty in the Winter Wild’ is available for purchase at: https://amzn.to/3STOkkz