When The Tawny’s founder gave me When Dark Roots Hunt to review he looked at me with a raised eyebrow and said in a mildly sarcastic tone, “It’s Young Adult speculative fiction adventure, can you handle that Paige?” What a nerve!
I was hooked from the first page and stayed hooked for all 398 pages. This book has broad appeal across age, gender, cultures and book genres, it’s YA for AA, that stands for All Adults.
When Dark Roots Hunt takes you to a fantastical intriguing world. To fully enjoy this book suspend all judgment and immerse yourself in its luminosity and complexity. It’s as though Game of Thrones met Alice in Wonderland in an underwater world.
The story’s hero is Sala, a young fearless woman who refuses to let her elders, or anyone, define her destiny. Sala lives in the Village of Itta. It survives in this peculiar world where Wyann trees search the shallows to spear passing prey with their roots because Itta is hidden behind a wall of poisonous ivy and all Ittans agree not to go out on the lake where those tree roots are like vicious killers.
The politics of ruling Itta have raised serious questions in Sala’s mind and her trust of those in authority has reached such a low level that she sets out across the wyann-infested swampland to find answers. Little does she realise what her actions will set in motion.
Despite being set in a futuristic unfamiliar world there is much about this book that feels almost too real. Sala is living in a society divided by questionable politics, economic hierarchies, housing scarcity, fast changing technology, climate impacts, social irresponsibility, death and destruction.
As you read this fast-paced story you’re right there with Sala, experiencing her emotions, indecision, doubt, frustration and breakthrough moments. There are so many twists and turns, double-crosses, even triple-crosses. It’s the ultimate nail-biting thriller that keeps you questioning your assumptions right the way through.
Here’s a taste of Sala’s world, “I follow their direction across waters swamped with over-grown rubble clumps, their thick bushes obscuring my view. Still, between two close-growing wyann trunks a short distance away, is a hard white shape. Its exterior is pearlescent, angular like a rhombus. I’ve never seen anything like it. In each of its four corners, slim triangular wing flaps stand vertically upright. In its centre is a raised glass cone. Grey scuff marks scar the ship’s sheen in places, large collision dents sully it in others. A dark plum smoke bloom shows where Mum must have thrown a glass oil bomb. The outline of the door in its side sits above the water-skin, the ship floating in water. No, not floating – the ship is sitting on top of the two wyann’s sleeping roots.”
It’s unsurprising this book is such a compelling read because its creator, Zena Shapter, is a multi-award winning author of speculative and contemporary fiction, who lives right in Tawny territory on the Northern Beaches. Zena lives and breathes storytelling and community. She’s founded and led community creativity projects for writers, and the award-winning Northern Beaches Writers’ Group.
Visit www.zenashapter.com to find out more about Zena, this book and her other books.
When Dark Roots Hunt is available online and in print at major bookshops. Shop local and pick it up at Harry Hartog or from Humphreys on The Corso at Manly.
For more Tawny Frogmouth book, film, music, theatre, and art reviews and articles, head here.