CAIRNS BOOK REVIEW: Deep Water by Pamela Freeman (Orbit)

Finally the next instalment in The Castings trilogy is available.

Readers return to the world of Bramble and Ash, two people fighting against the ‘norms’ of their society, trying to find a way of stopping the mad mage Saker.

Freeman’s world of Acton, an invaders’ people who have taken over the lands of another, has vague paralles with our own, which is one of the reasons Deep Water is so readable.

Bramble somehow manages to find a way into the ancient past tied as she is to nature and the wild forest, she manages to track the history of her land’s invasion.

The myths and legends of the past become confused as Bramble realises that history is never entirely the truth.

Ash, on the other hand, has to make his way back to the world of his father, trying desperately to prove that he is worth something even though he is not a bard and cannot sing; the most important thing in his father’s world.

New characters pop up and minor characters from the first book are fleshed out.

The soldiers are faced with an enemy that can’t die and the different factions must work a way around their differences or everyone is doomed.

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