Ravenwood (Nathan Lowell)

Ravenwood: A Tanyth Fairport Adventure
The Tanyth Fairport Adventures series, Book 1
Nathan Lowell
CreateSpace
Fiction, Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: Since escaping an abusive marriage, Tanyth has spent twenty years traveling the land, learning the ways of healers, until just one master remains: the elusive hermit of Lammas Wood, on an island across the sea. She hopes to get there before winter sets in, but plans change when the inhabitants of a small, nameless hamlet need her help. Their old healing woman passed away before training an apprentice, and with cold weather coming they could use some assistance. Despite herself, Tanyth finds herself drawn into village life... just when strange changes waken new powers within her, and bandits threaten the settlement.

REVIEW: Rather than a bold, brash epic adventure, Ravenwood presents a smaller, slower story, what might be called "cozy fantasy" now (though I'm not sure the term was much used in 2011, when this was originally published). This turns out to be both an asset and a detriment, leaving me with mixed feelings.
It opens on a decent note, with an aging Tanyth - in her early 50s - feeling the wear and tear of a long life of traveling as she heads toward what she thinks will be a small stop on her way to her greater goal of spending a season with the half-legendary Lammas Wood hermit, possibly the last healer left with secrets for her to learn. The hamlet she finds when she needs a rest along the way is so new it doesn't even have a name, populated with a handful of misfits and young families hoping to forge a new, brighter fortune away from city life, but lacking certain practical, hard-won knowledge of how to live at the edge of wilderness; she is called back to the people after her brief stopover when one of their number falls ill with a fairly common ailment, not even knowing enough basic herb-lore to brew a willow bark tea to ease a fever. After so many years as the pupil and apprentice, Tanyth finds herself seen as an elder and a master, and isn't entirely sure how she feels with this change in status... and that's before she starts having peculiar visions and visitations from an oddly cunning raven, signs of yet another change as (not really a spoiler) she begins manifesting what may be magical powers, which may be linked to early signs of menopause. Here is where I started feeling some odd vibes around the story; it's a man writing about a deeply feminine matter and layering it with mystical meaning, while also ensuring that the lives of all women revolve almost exclusively around males and children. I get that this is a pseudo-medieval world with limited options for women, but something about the way it came across, as though (from the author's male perspective) there was absolutely no question that the only things a woman could possibly ever care about are finding a mate, mothering children, and healing (presented as mothering in another context), struck a sour note. Even in medieval times, there were women who had other goals or ambitions, even if their social status didn't always permit them to pursue such things.
Beyond that, Tanyth's tale unwinds slowly. Very, very slowly, with more than a little repetition. Her age and greater worldly experience make her an important local fixture almost overnight, even as she initially resists settling down and delaying her pilgrimage to the hermit; her almost offhand suggestion that they might build an inn to diversify income sources and create a heart to the budding community is enthusiastically taken up by the town founders, and her promise (only sporadically followed up on) to instruct the local women in herbal medicine brings her a devoted following from the start - not just among the helpless little women but among the children (particularly one precocious boy - whose enthusiasm to become a healer, seen as unusual in a male, is never followed through on, almost like the author forgot about the promise he made in presenting that aspect of his character... by far not the only detail that was set up to be a plot point but turned out to be a red herring, such as the frequent ride-bys of King's Own soldiers, but I digress). Conflict comes not just from Tanyth struggling to come to grips with her newly-emerging abilities (with page-count-padding denials and backslides) but from a troublesome pack of bad guys looking to fleece the little hamlet via a protection racket, and taking the town's rejection of their scheme to almost ridiculous extremes. Much of the book is more about the townsfolk working to turn their little venture into a successful, self-sufficient community, and Tanyth visiting neighbors, drinking tea, and contemplating the potential uses of various local plants without actually using them, as well as having sporadic raven dreams that added nothing at all to the plot as often as not.
There's some interest to be found in all this, and the overall story and characters could be intriguing and even charming at times, but by the end it felt like it took far too long to get where it was going, and lost parts of itself somewhere along the way.

You Might Also Enjoy:
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi (Shannon Chakraborty) - My Review
Witches of Lychford (Paul Cornell) - My Review
The Once and Future Witches (Alix E. Harrow) - My Review