Briar Book of the Dead by A.G. Slatter

Title: Briar Book of the Dead

Author: A.G. Slatter

Genre: Mystery, Fantasy

Publisher: Titan Books

Published: 13^th February 2024

Format: Paperback

Pages: 400

Price: $27.99

Synopsis: Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations. The Briar family of witches run the town of Silverton, caring for its inhabitants with their skills and magic. In the usual scheme of things, they would be burnt for their sorcery, but the church has given them dispensation in return for their protection of the borders of the Darklands, where the much-feared Leech Lords hold sway. Ellie is being trained as a steward, administering for the town, and warding off the insistent interest of the church. When her grandmother dies suddenly, Ellie’s cousin Audra rises to the position of Briar Witch, propelling Ellie into her new role. As she navigates fresh challenges, an unexpected new ability to see and speak to the dead leads her to uncover sinister family secrets, stories of burnings, lost grimoires and evil spells. Reeling from one revelation to the next, she seeks answers from the long dead and is forced to decide who to trust, as a devastating plot threatens to destroy everything the Briar witches have sacrificed so much to build. Told in the award-winning author’s trademark gorgeous, addictive prose, this is an intricately woven tale of a family of witches struggling against the bonds of past sins and persecution.

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Being the only non-witch in a family of a long line of witches like the Briars is hard. Especially when your family runs Silverton, and everyone pities you or thinks the role you have been given has been taken away from someone else. For Ellie, being the steward means she has some influence, and the recent deaths in the family have changed things.  Ever since Maud died, things have been different, and whilst Ellie is out visiting families, the unthinkable happens. Upon her return, Ellie finds out that Gisela has died suddenly, and she is thrust into a new role: a role where she records the stories of the dead into a book as she explores her new ability. A new ability that will reveal deadly secrets about Ellie’s family and unravel everything she knows.

From long-buried secrets, evil spells, and lost grimoires – one in particular that could answer the mysteries surrounding the various disappearances of families in the outlying areas. But Ellie also needs to learn who to trust – the dead, who are coming to her to tell her their stories, or her family, who have their own secrets?

The Briar Book of the Dead is a mystery and crime book with a difference, set in a world of magic where things are not always as they seem, and secrets abound. As Ellie moves through the story, the crimes and mysteries unfold slowly, almost as a result of the rest of the narrative. It means that the mystery bubbles along slowly, and we encounter characters who come across as people we can trust. And yet, there was always a sense that Ellie wasn’t quite sure of who to trust, and who to confide in apart from the ghost that guiding Ellie through her journey of guiding the spirits through to their final resting place.

The quieter aspect of the mystery in this book meant that things started to build up to a crescendo near the end. The things that triggered this were surprising and yet, they fitted in with the narrative so well that it felt like a natural progression to get this point. In doing so, I felt that The Briar Book of the Dead used mystery and crime in a different way to what we might expect, and for me, it worked well. I enjoyed seeing how a community of witches responded to sudden deaths and disappearances, how they accepted the explanations until a certain point. The slow build was very effective in this book, because it allowed the genres of crime and fantasy to come together and create something that I have never seen before.

Another aspect I enjoyed was the medieval-esque world that Angela created, which helped create the sense that things weren’t quite what they seemed and helped explain why people didn’t question Audra at times. She was in charge, and it was clear that people followed her lead. And yet, there always seemed to be a sense that she was hiding something and overcompensating for it. It creates a tension that seems to be bubbling along below the surface which hints at something much more complex and much darker than we initially see on the page. Everything used works well though, even when they feel coincidental. What worked was that it allowed everything to come together effectively to create a novel that has hints of everything, from mystery to magic, to history and crime, and complicated family and community dynamics that create a story full of curiosity and wonder that brings mystery to life in a new and creative way.