Wormwood Mire: A Stella Montgomery Intrigue by Judith Rossell
ABC Books, 2016. ISBN 9780733333019
Warning: This review will be chockers with fulsome praise and
expressions of delight.
From the point I took this book from its package two days ago I was
in love with it.
We know that you can indeed judge a book by its cover often and
looking at the beautiful artwork of this novel and stroking its
textured surface was like holding a plush box of chocolates and
greedily anticipating the contents.
And I was not disappointed. A gorgeously bound book with wonderful
creamy pages, full page illustrations, embellishments and font all
in a forest green this just oozes style and superiority.
After Stella's first adventure (Withering-by-Sea)
the nasty Aunts are icily furious and ponder what to do with such an
unsuitable child. They grasp the opportunity to send her to the old
family home where their cousin is going to have his two (also
motherless) children taught by a governess (hah! Expense-free
solution) and so Stella is packed off to Wormwood Mire, a decaying
mansion set in huge overgrown grounds. Her initial trepidation is
relieved when she meets Strideforth and Hortense, her two cousins,
both of whom are quirky in their own ways. She is further reassured
by Miss Araminter the governess who is at the very least eccentric
but extremely kind and sensitive.
Before she departed the gloomy house of Aunts Stella had
discovered an old photograph which she has identified as being of
her mother at Wormwood Mire with two babies in an old-fashioned pram
- two babies? Did she once have a sister or twin? She is determined
to solve the mystery of this while she is in the crumbling family
ruin. But Wormwood Mire holds many secrets. The children's ancestor
Wilberforce Montgomery who built the house was a traveller and
collector of the curious and bizarre; objects, plants and animals.
And there is something all the villagers are terrified by but won't
talk about. What is it and will the children be able to discover the
menace - and survive it?
What a sensational read this is! The narrative flows perfectly from
eddy to whirlpool to backwater and the reader is carried along
effortlessly. For me it would have been a one sitting read had I not
had to get up early the next morning. As it was I had to save the
last few chapters but quickly polished them off, savouring every
word. Stella is indomitable - a Mighty Girl in every sense - she has
courage and intelligence and empathy. There is also the mysterious
power she possesses. She is a perfect foil for Strideforth, the
essential scientific mind (at times with less than perfect success)
and strange wild little Hortense, who is more often than not like
the little creatures she adopts. I cannot recommend this highly
enough - of course, those who loved Judith's Withering-by-Sea
will be eager to get their hands on it - but for those who have not
yet been introduced to Stella and her hidden otherworldly talent, it
will also be a joy to read.
Sue Warren