Emlyn’s Moon by Jenny Nimmo

Perhaps it’s because I’ve watched so many movies, but I’m always surprised when the second book in a trilogy is better than the first, but right after Slaves of the Mastery, I come across this, the sequel to The Snow Spider, which improves on its predecessor in many ways. However, despite superior style, tone and concept, ultimately Emlyn’s Moon was less satisfying than its charmingly simple predecessor, because despite setting up premises infinitely more intriguing than the first book ever did, it cannot deliver what it promises, so in the end is more of a disappointment. It may be a technically a better book, but the bathos of the second half makes it a very unsatisfactory read.

Nimmo jettisons the rather limiting ‘A wizard must always be alone’ concept of the first book, and introduces a new protagonist and ally for Gwyn: Nia Lloyd, his best friend’s sister. Nimmo takes the brave step of making her hero appear to be the antagonist at first, and throughout the story makes magic seem to be a dark, frightening force. This was hinted to be the case at the end of The Snow Spider, but where it was abrupt and undeveloped there, here it makes the story richer, deeper, more interesting. Nia befriends both Gwyn and his cousin Emlyn, long-time enemies thanks to a quarrel between their fathers. Emlyn is a good character – a normal boy, but an outsider, who reacts to Nia’s attention with an endearing eagerness, and whose pain at a broken promise is actually quite touching. But sadly, after an argument, he all but disappears from the plot, and rather than the problems being reconciled in any real manner, there is a rescue, and a rather absurd resolution of the problems between the fathers involving Emlyn’s mother having become a pill-popping recluse in the next valley. The crisis seems to come about simply because the end of the book is approaching rather than because there’s been any real catalyst, and Nia’s inferiority complex never seems quite believable. Nevertheless, the story of her making a collage, the conflict between the boys in the first half and the imaginative fantasy sequences when magic is evoked are all well-sketched, and even though the adults in the series are all woefully simple or vague, the children are convincing ten-year-olds, even those of them who are very old for their years.

Overall, some fascinating ideas and a marked improvement in style, sadly underdeveloped, and with a very artificial climax that ultimately teaches its characters very little. Still, far from a bad book, with much to recommend it.