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Very engaging rework of fairytale ideas without ever strictly retelling source material. The main character's magical arc is a tiny bit Mary Sue but there's so much else going on (predatory forests, possession, court politics, Eastern European village customs) that it's forgivable, and the whole thing is beautiful, harsh, and immersive.

As another reviewer said a whole book of these is a bit much at once, but they're good rollicking stories about an otherwise dull pleasant English village where the Armitage family matter-of-factly deal with witches, ghosts, baby griffins that need raising, the demands of pet unicorns, and so on. They're in that unthreatening sweet spot where you have only the tiniest worry the magical problem won't get solved, and there will be something nice for tea.

I liked Michelle and enjoyed reading the book but it's rather guarded, perhaps expectedly. The picture is of a deeply relatable family woman and community member, never an intellect (and one knows she must have been, to have reached the educational and professional heights she did).

I don't read many political memoirs, so I suspect but don't know that this is all intentional and for all I know she's much more open than average.

Oh, this is such desperately sweet stuff I feel the need to caveat my three starts, but it's likeable enough I guess. Main character a terribly serious druid novice, spiritual vocations, lots of egalitarian marriage, somehow there are all sorts of badass warriors going around and yet everyone is very tender on the magical island. Still, entertaining enough.

I guessed the amazing plot twist about halfway through though.

I don't know, there was lots of intriguing stuff in here but it felt labored, and I kept forgetting it was by an American writer because it seemed so much like recent Julian Barnes or whatever. Sometimes I wish writers who get older would not feel the need to deliver end of life insights, with which this novel is somewhat overburdened. I kind of love Doris Lessing for having figured out how not to get super-heavy about this--maybe because she was so serious in youth and lightened up?

Still, though, really vivid writing and sharp insights and memorable people and many writers can't do that at any point in life.

Kind of like a less entertaining Valley of the Dolls.

This was so excellently unsparing about the lives of spinsters in early Victorian England, and so intriguing about the fossil hunting, both the "science" and the business. Highly recommended.