Book Review - Ami McKay's Half Spent Was the Night
Half Spent Was the Night by Ami McKay
Published by: Knopf Canada
Publication Date: October 16th, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 98 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy
We are now in the dead days. "Christmas Day has come and gone, the New Year lies ahead. Strange things happen Between the Years, in the days outside of time. Minutes go wild, hours vanish. Idleness becomes a clever thief, stealing the names of the days of the week, muting the steady tick of watches and clocks. These are the hours when angels, ghosts, demons and meddlers ride howling wind and flickering candlelight, keen to stir unguarded hearts and restless minds." Which is why the three witches of New York have closed up their shop until the New Year. The Hermitage won't be attending to their customers, they will be attending to themselves. The three witches, Adelaide Thom, Eleanor St. Clair, and Beatrice Dunn, sit before the fire seeking comfort, companionship, and a glimpse into the future as they all have decisions to make. Which is why the two older witches indulge Beatrice when she suggests they roast chestnuts. Her Aunt Lydia had a tradition that a cracked nut meant "yes" and a burned one meant "no" to whatever question was in your heart. Beatrice's nut cracks, but now she's left with a question that can not be answered with a "yes" or a "no." She's been dreaming of a dark stranger every night. If she could she'd spend all her time asleep with this man. But now she knows that she'll meet him. But when? Whereas Adelaide uses the chestnuts to decide which drink to start with. Which is when the housekeeper, Mrs. Stutt, speaks up. She hasn't become fond of her employer's inamorata yet, but is appalled by what the witches are doing. You should never ask a god to act like an organ grinder's monkey and ask which shell hides the pea. You need to do it properly. Which is what Bleigiessen is. You melt metal until it's molten and drop it into a bucket of cold water. The shape will show you your fate. It's lucky that before the three witches see Mrs. Stutt's reaction to Beatrice's fate that there's a knock on the door. A footman stands in the snow with an invitation for Beatrice to attend A Rauhnächt Masquerade at the Fifth Avenue Hotel on New Year's Eve hosted by the Baroness Berta Weisshirsch. And then another footman arrives. And another. Until all three witches have been invited. While they discuss this last minute invite Beatrice wonders if this is where she'll meet her dream man, while in the kitchen Mrs. Stutt is worried about the darkness that is coming for Beatrice. Darkness that might be tied into the Masquerade where the oddest of people have been invited. The Baroness always knows just the right people to pick and no one has ever failed to appear. But behind it all, is there a motive? Or is she really just a goodhearted woman doing it "for the children?" The witches will find out as the year turns.
This small volume is what I expected from The Witches of New York. A magical, heartwarming yuletide tale full of love, forgiveness, and joyful expectations. I mean, I didn't expect the holiday cheer in the first volume, but you get the drift. I first read Half Spent Was the Night as the year turned and I couldn't have thought of a better read to ring in the New Year. There's just so much hope brimming on every page. But a hope that's tinged with the very real dangers of the world we live in. In simpler terms, this book balances the light and the dark better than its predecessor. Yet you have to have read that book in order to get the magnitude of all that happens in these few pages that you can read over an afternoon. Which, I should ad, work just as well on a sultry summer day as during the dead days of winter. I should know, I just reread it during just such a Saturday afternoon. So what can you expect to happen with our three witches of New York? You can expect a bright future and a tying up of loose ends. This almost reads as a coda to The Witches of New York. It's a glimpse of their lives after the chaos of the previous year has settled down and now they are wistfully looking forward and wondering where their lives will go next now that they are "safe." For Beatrice that means first love, for Eleanor that means taking a leap into a love she unexpectedly found, and for Adelaide it means trusting the man she loves and who wants to marry her with all her secrets. And it's Adelaide's secrets, along with Beatrice's danger, that form the majority of the plot. They need to go from "safe" to safe. Adelaide has a past, which, as I mentioned in my review of The Witches of New York, is only mentioned in passing because it's in a previous volume, The Virgin Cure, that her story is told. She has some danger lurking in the past in the form of a dangerous man. While the danger posed to Beatrice is Mr. Gideon Palsham, the demon Malphas in disguise. At first he wanted to destroy, now he wants to make her his creature. Which is where the Baroness Berta Weisshirsch and her ball come into play. She is far more than she appears. She is the Queen of Witches. And she sees that her three witches of New York might need a little help. Might need someone to run the villains out of town. They are loyal and deserve a special treat for the New Year. And all the loose ends comes together in a beautiful bow and the type of package I can get behind, a dead predator in an alleyway. I know. I have strange tastes in gifts. Or perhaps I just have the tastes of a Queen?
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