About.com Rating

The Victorian London setting of Witch Finder gives it a bit of steampunk flavor, though it's a story about secret magic rather than one about steam-powered technology (and in that way it reminds me a little of The Unnaturalists). It could also be categorized as romance, though the love story is very much in the background and not really even an important factor in the plot until quite late in the book.

Publication Information

• Full Title:Witch Finder
• Series: Witch Finder (#1)
• Author: Ruth Warburton
• Publisher: Hodder Children's Books
• Publication Date: January 2014
• ISBN: 9781444914467 (paperback)

Witch and Finder

Witch Finder alternates viewpoints between its two main characters. Luke is an apprentice blacksmith and newly inducted into a secret brotherhood of witch hunters. His final task before becoming a full member of the society is to kill a witch picked at random from a book listing all known witches. Though he's never killed anyone before, he doesn't think it will be a difficult task, because his parents were killed by a witch and he has burned for revenge ever since.

Rosamund, Rosa for short, is the daughter of an aristocratic family that has run out of money. She is expected to make a good marriage in order to help restore her family's fortunes, but the man her family has picked out -- an old friend of her brother's and heir to the most powerful witch family in London -- is a mercurial young man who can be cruel one moment and charming the next.

Then there's also the fact that Rosa is Luke's randomly-chosen target.

Planning and Plotting

Sometimes I really appreciate a book that takes its time setting up the action and lets us get to known the characters before throwing them into the fire, so to speak. Witch Finder does just that, and while I suspect many readers may find it harder to get into than a book that starts out in the middle of the action, I really liked the slow build. I found that letting the characters be concerned with their own separate problems first made the moment when their lives came together in a more significant way much more effective.

I also really liked that even though this is a love story in the end, neither character really thinks of the other as a possible love interest at all. There are small moments of attraction, but because both Luke and Rosa are preoccupied with the huge events in their lives, and they are very much members of separate social classes (not to mention one is a witch and one not), romance doesn't occur to either of them until they realize that their lives have become inextricably entwined in thoroughly non-romantic ways.

Obligation and Conviction

Thematically, the two main characters are also connected through obligation. They both have to do -- or believe they have to do -- things they'd rather not in order to fulfill obligations to their families. Luke has to kill a witch to become a member of his brotherhood, and to make his uncle proud. And Rosa has to marry someone who terrifies her to help her brother find a place in the government and restore her family's wealth.

The Victorian English setting works really well for this theme, because that time and place were very much about being a proper member of one's class. But it was also a time when the middle class was becoming a larger force, so crossing social boundaries was not completely impossible.

The one thing I found somewhat lacking, though, was Luke's loyalty to the witch hunters. His need for revenge is clear (though could perhaps have been emphasized a little more), and certainly the opening scenes where he is initiated worked really well. But the brotherhood is supposed to be founded on a religious belief in the evil of witches, and Luke simply wasn't portrayed as being very religious. There were a few mentions of God and the Bible, but that was all.

More Witches

The contrast between the growing industrialism of Victorian England with the secret magic of witches and the medieval-religious fervour of witch hunters was really appealing for me. Add in a couple of characters I really liked, an apt portrayal of class differences and obligations, and good writing, and I'm not only looking forward to the next book in this series (though standalone-fans should note you can also read Witch Finder completely on its own), but I'm adding the author's other books to be to-read list.