Witchmark Bewitches Yet Bewilders

Witchmark (2018)
Written by: C.L. Polk
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 318 (Paperback)
Series: The Kingston Cycle Book #1
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Why I Chose It: Witchmark is a book that I should have picked up last year for my resolution to read more diverse books since it features a queer romance. I didn’t get around to it so I read it this year because it is a Nebula Award nominee.

The premise:

In an original world reminiscent of Edwardian England in the shadow of a World War, cabals of noble families use their unique magical gifts to control the fates of nations, while one young man seeks only to live a life of his own.

Magic marked Miles Singer for suffering the day he was born, doomed either to be enslaved to his family’s interest or to be committed to a witches’ asylum. He went to war to escape his destiny and came home a different man, but he couldn’t leave his past behind. The war between Aeland and Laneer leaves men changed, strangers to their friends and family, but even after faking his own death and reinventing himself as a doctor at a cash-strapped veterans’ hospital, Miles can’t hide what he truly is.

When a fatally poisoned patient exposes Miles’ healing gift and his witchmark, he must put his anonymity and freedom at risk to investigate his patient’s murder. To find the truth he’ll need to rely on the family he despises, and on the kindness of the most gorgeous man he’s ever seen.

Mild Spoilers.

Discussion: One of my biggest pet peeves about fantasy novels is how many of them don’t give you any clue that they’re the first book in a series. When I finished Witchmark, I thought, “Wow, that really ended right in the middle of the action.” I did not realize that it was part of a series until I started reading online reviews. Nothing on the cover or in the premise let me know that this was not stand-alone book. The same thing happened with Katherine Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale. Lack of information aside, I did love Witchmark’s cover, which is a haunting, lovely image of a man on a bicycle with a finely dressed couple serving as his shadow, rendered in beautiful shades of blue.

I loved the idea behind Witchmark—a re-imagined post-World War I England where magic is real. There is a considerable amount of charm in this world. People mainly travel by bicycle and often live in boarding houses. Polk’s writing is often wonderfully descriptive. “The dower house smelt of verbena and oil soap. The walls were plaster and paint, a soft blue trimmed in white and gilt. Ancient furniture bore the fanciful carving of my great-grandfather’s day, and the bedstead stood heavy with dark carved wood. The mattress, the linens, and the pillows were new, treated with perfumes of lavender and roses to aid sleep.” (p.243).

Miles Singer was an interesting and finely drawn main character whom I could root for. In Aeland, powerful, wealthy mages control everything, even the weather. Grace, Miles’ sister, is a Storm-Singer, the most respected category of witch. Miles’ destiny is to be bound to her as a Secondary, a sort of magical slave. By becoming a doctor and escaping into the war, Miles frees himself from his family because they assume he is dead. When the story opens, Miles is living undercover, working at a veterans’ hospital, and trying to solve the puzzle of what is making so many veterans go berserk and kill their families. The mysterious and alluring Tristan brings in a witch, Nick Elliot, who was poisoned. Tristan recognizes Miles as a witch and asks for his help in solving the murder.

I liked that Miles’ sexual orientation was only a small part of the story, not the focus. Even the fact that his family would expect him to marry a woman for breeding purposes was not a major plot line. Polk also does a good job of conveying Miles longing for Tristan. However, I felt shortchanged in the romance department. Miles and Tristan get interrupted every time they kiss. They spend one night together that abruptly cuts away to the next morning, like a PG-13 movie. I also felt that they went from being friends with a crush to pledging undying love too fast to be believable.

Although I enjoyed many aspects of Witchmark, the book was extremely confusing. I’m not sure why some people can hide the fact that they’re a witch and other cannot. I don’t know why witches run Aeland yet being a witch is a crime. Grace can control the weather but Miles can use magic to heal, so why is her witchcraft considered more important than his? Miles went to war to escape his family but is rather nonchalant when Grace comes back into his life. Why is Miles seemingly the only person working on the issue of the veterans murdering people? I’m not even sure why Aeland and Laneer went to war in the first place. The action in Witchmark is rushed. I wish that Polk had slowed down and explained more, especially since this is the first book in a series.

In conclusion: Witchmark starts with a great idea, “re-invented Edwardian England with magic,” but it does not deliver. Polk tries to cram a murder mystery, romance, family drama, and a complicated witch society into 318 pages and it is too much. Even though the setting was fantastic and the main character was likeable, I’m not excited to read this book’s sequel, Stormsong, which comes out in 2020.