THE LAST WINDWITCH

Unwittingly caught up in a magical family’s deadly quarrel, an apprentice hedgewitch discovers that she has a higher destiny.

Adopted as a foundling by Mother Magdi, a kindly hedgewitch, Brida has spent much of her 12 years struggling to learn herbal spellcraft. Unfortunately, in discovering that she has a truer knack for a more powerful, intuitive form of magic, she draws the cruel attention of Moira, Queen of Crows, whose evil magic has driven away her two sisters and knocked the once-peaceful realm so out of kilter that the weather has turned unpredictable, the population is terrorized, and zombie revenants and other monsters are rising. What can Brida do to fight such evil? What else but harness other magics, including the white, or sacred; the hedgewitches’ nature-based green; the wild magic of the legendary stormhorses—and one other mysterious type, based on wind and long thought to be extinct. Brida never seems to lack for an encounter with a knowledgeable character or overheard conversation to fill in her backstory or conveniently placed allies to bail her out of tight spots; still Adam kits her with a sturdy sense of right and wrong, pits her against several genuinely creepy creatures, and outfits her with simple choices at the climax…plus the power to right all wrongs at the end. Brida presents as White; two secondary characters have copper skin.

Satisfying fare for readers who prefer their heroes and baddies clearly distinguished.