CBR Bingo: ‘O’
I bought Once Was Willem by M.R. Carey a few months ago, essentially on a whim (I liked the title and the cover). I’d vaguely heard of the author (he wrote The Girl with All the Gifts, a book/movie that has been recommended to me before, but that I’ve never actually gotten around to reading/watching yet), but I was basically going in blind. I picked it up recently because it’s a short standalone novel, which I like to read to break up bigger series.
Set in England during the Anarchy period (the civil war resulting from the succession crisis between Stephen and Matilda), the titular Once-Was-Willem narrates a story set in his small village. A bandit leader has taken advantage of the chaos to overthrow the local lord and install himself as the ruler of the nearby castle, then demand tribute from the surrounding peasants. Willem is a young teenager who dies from illness. Distraught, his parents will do anything to get him back, including begging the services of a shady sorcerer. The boy does come back, but it’s as a revenant, and neither he nor Willem’s parents think of him as the same person. He takes a new name, Once-Was-Willem, and attempts to recruit other local “monsters” to deal with a greater evil.
This one was hard to categorize in terms of genre. It’s a mishmash of historical, fantasy, and horror, and also has a strangely cozy feeling to it, especially in Once-Was-Willem’s dealings with the other supernatural creatures. It was a very quick read, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. I’ll likely pick up other books by the author in the future.