Verdigris Deep by Frances Hardinge Review
Some of you may know British children’s fantasy author Frances Hardinge as the winner of the 2015 Costa Book Award for her novel The Lie Tree. It was only the second time since 2001 that a book in the children’s fantasy category won the Book of the Year award.
However, much before The Lie Tree was published, Frances Hardinge had authored several gems and Verdigris Deep is definitely one of them.
Note that this book is also known as Well Witched in certain countries including the United States.
To give you a brief synopsis of the book, it revolves around three tweens, Ryan, Chelle and Josh. The three of them find themselves stuck in a nearby town called Magwhite with no money for the return bus ticket. It is then that one of them comes up with the idea of taking out coins from the town’s wishing well to pay for the bus ride home.
Quite a harmless adventure. It is not like anyone wanted those coins back or they were stealing from someone. At least that is what they thought.
Soon each of our tweens start to notice something wrong within them. Before they know it, they are caught in the curse of a well witch, the spirit of the wishing well.
They must now obey the well witch and fulfil wishes of the ones that threw the coin in the well in the first place.
Verdigris Deep starts out just as any other children’s fantasy adventure and we slowly get to learn more about the three children including the spirit in the well.
Although there are no major twists or turns in the book, it is still a gripping read and the whole time I was quite invested in the future of the children and what was to become of them.
I personally got quite connected to the three protagonists and it was nice to see their characters develop through the book. Again, nothing dramatic but definitely something there to keep you emotionally connected.
However, the best aspect of the book is with regards to the wishes themselves. Not what the wishers want and how the children need to make those wishes come true, but what do wishes actually mean.
This is where the book really made me think. This was the aspect that stood out for me. The book slowly gets into the difference between what we want and what we need. There is a huge difference between the two and often, when we make a wish, our words don’t really reflect what we truly mean.
It also means the interpretation of our wish is not always the actual truth and a wish can quickly become a curse if not careful.
Overall, Verdigris Deep is an easy-read and quite straightforward. As mentioned already, it never deviates a lot from its main premise and the story has a linear progress without major surprises.
However, there is a subtle growth in the story arc including the development of the children and the underlying conundrum of what exactly is a wish. What was the frame of mind of someone who makes a wish and what did they truly need.
I wholeheartedly recommend this book to everyone. Just like all of Frances Hardinge’s books, it may be classified as a children’s fantasy but it will appeal to readers of all ages.
