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Reviewed by Demetria Head for Readers' Favorite
Chris Von Halle’s The Mire Witch: Between Dark and Light brings readers into eleven-year-old Mara’s world, a hidden pocket that her father, a powerful wizard, forged in the middle of a swamp. It is concealed so well that even passersby would end up walking straight through it without knowing. Her pet dragon, Felzar, sees that Mara is just waking up from a recurring nightmare that he believes is due to her fear that she will not be powerful enough to defeat the Dark Lord when she’s eighteen. Soon, her mother reveals a “magical weapon” left by her father before he died, piquing Mara’s curiosity and triggering a dangerous accident that shouldn’t be possible inside the magic-less cabin. Doubt blooms. Why does the weapon work here? What else isn’t she being told? Drawn past the X-marked trees into the swampy mire, Mara starts testing the borders of her world, hunting truth even as Shadrith horrors and Sycorath’s shadow loom. What will she discover about Ellendra, her family, and herself?
The Mire Witch is an entry that can stand alone as a middle-grade dark fantasy. It is swift and eerie. Chris Von Halle uses Mara to narrate, and this balances childlike candor and the increasing dread of the narrative. The obvious themes from the very beginning are secrecy and trust that will resonate with readers who like unveiling myths to find complicated truths. The descriptive scenes are vivid, but Von Halle also restrains the gore. Fans of slow, swamp-thick dread and courageous kid logic in similar works like Katherine Arden’s Small Spaces will recognize the same here. Also, readers who like Kelly Barnhill’s The Girl Who Drank the Moon will appreciate the mother-child mysteries. This is a spooky quest that teaches readers which fears are warnings and which ones are cages.
