Plain Kate lives in a world of super­sti­tions and curses, where a song can heal a wound and a shadow can work deep magic. As the wood-carver’s daugh­ter, Kate held a carv­ing knife before a spoon, and her wooden tal­is­mans are so fine that some even call her ‘witch-blade’, a dan­ger­ous nick­name in a coun­try where witches are hunted and burned in the square. 

For Kate and her vil­lage have fallen on hard times. Kate’s father has died, leav­ing her alone in the world. And a mys­te­ri­ous fog now cov­ers the coun­try­side, ruin­ing crops and spread­ing fear of hunger and sick­ness. The towns­peo­ple are look­ing for some­one to blame, and their eyes have fallen on Kate. 

Enter Linay, a stranger with a propo­si­tion: In exchange for her shadow, he’ll give Kate the means to escape the angry town, and what’s more, he’ll grant her heart’s wish. It’s a chance for her to start over, to find a home, a fam­ily, a place to belong. But Kate soon real­izes she can’t live shad­ow­less for­ever — and that Linay’s designs are darker than she ever dreamed.

So I’ll admit, I bought this book purely because of the cover (isn’t it just lovely) and because its been a while since I read a really good children’s fan­tasy book that adults could equally enjoy.

Sim­ply put: I adored Plain Kate and can say with­out a doubt it has become one of my favourite reads this year.

The main rea­son for this was, of course, Tag­gle. Why is it that talk­ing ani­mals tend to make the best char­ac­ters (Manchee and Mog I’m look­ing at you!)? I loved Tag­gle. Utterly and com­pletely (any­one who knows me won’t be at all sur­prised by this). Bow cap­tures him per­fectly; arro­gant, regal, sar­cas­tic and totally adorable. Loyal and pro­tec­tive of Kate, Tag­gle comes across as very human at times, and hilar­i­ously cat-like at others,

Tag­gle climbed into her lap. “Hello,” he said, then rolled over and peered up at her appeal­ingly, “I am fond of you and present my throat for scratching.”

Their friend­ship is very spe­cial and my absolute favourite part of the book. Kate is alone in the world, her father has died and the local vil­lagers are wary of her because of her quiet nature and expres­sive carvings. She expe­ri­ences prej­u­dice and fear from both strangers and those she con­sid­ers fam­ily and through­out it all, it is Tag­gle who is her one true friend and con­stant companion.

Kate was a char­ac­ter I really came to admire and like — she is a quiet, deter­mined girl with an inner strength and has had to learn how to sur­vive on her own, rely­ing on the kind­ness of strangers and her own carv­ing skills. But she also comes across as incred­i­bly vul­ner­a­ble and yearns to be accepted, to be part of a family. It was won­der­ful to read a story that focused on an inde­pen­dent, soli­tary hero­ine in search of her own place in the world.

Bow’s char­ac­ters are well drawn and have a com­plex­ity you don’t always find in younger children’s lit­er­a­ture. Linay, the ‘vil­lain’ of this story isn’t just a cor­rupt, evil char­ac­ter, his motives are very human and I enjoyed see­ing the pro­gres­sion of his char­ac­ter. He does some ter­ri­ble things, but he also shows Kate kind­ness, per­haps more than most. His rela­tion­ship with Kate is com­pelling right through to the end.

Plain Kate is rem­i­nis­cent of one of Grimm’s fairy tales. It is has melan­choly feel to it, is very dark and quite vio­lent in places. Bow explores dif­fer­ent cul­tures, tra­di­tions and beliefs and how sus­pi­cion and prej­u­dice can all too eas­ily turn to fear and hatred. But it is also very much a tale of redemp­tion, love, friend­ship and per­se­ver­ance. The nar­ra­tive flows beau­ti­fully and is quite lyri­cal in its simplicity.

This is a lovely story. Some read­ers may be put off by the quiet tone and pac­ing of Plain Kate as most of the action does take place in the last third of the book. I found it dif­fi­cult, at first, to engage with Kate. She is a dis­tant char­ac­ter due to her expe­ri­ences, but I fell in love with her all the same. The end­ing is just per­fect. Bit­ter­sweet, heart­break­ing and exactly what it ought to be. The only thing I have to com­plain about is that I didn’t want it to finish.

Ciri came tod­dling up to them. He was the young prince of the Roamers, a boy of two, the favorite of the dozen naked and cheer­ful chil­dren who chased chicken and snuck rides on horses in Roamer’s camps. Just now he had Tag­gle in a headlock.

“Help,” croaked the cat.

Drina shed her anger and pulled boy and cat into her lap. 

“Ciri, Ciri,” she said, and dropped into the Roamer lan­guage, a liq­uid coax­ing in which Plain Kate caught only the word ‘cat.’ Ciri unfolded his elbows, and Tag­gle spilled out, buy-eyed.

Plain Kate picked him up and scratched his ruff. “Thank you for not killing him.” By this time she knew how to flat­ter a cat: praise of feroc­ity and civil­ity both.

Tag­gle preened. “He’s a kit­ten.” He arranged his dig­nity around him with a few care­fully placed licks. “Else I would have laid such a cross­hatch of scratches on him he’d have scales like a fish.”