The Passing Place

In the distant past before the lost years and the breaking of the world, in a younger less cynical time, I was sent a manuscript to read. This was about four years ( three atrocious prime ministers and one pandemic) ago and no one knew what was about to happen. Which is to say a lot. So one hopes that the writer of the manuscript in question will forgive me if I admit I had more or less forgotten everything about it by last month when I was asked if I wanted an ARC copy of the final novel.

The only things I really remembered were being impressed with the authors style, the darkness of the setting, finding myself drawn in by the involving central character and wanting to know where the story was going to go. So of course I said yes, I would love to an ARC copy. I then went back and read the notes I’d sent for the author back in 2020.

Between the earlier draft novel I was sent in 2020 and this ARC a whole lot of revision and some whole sale changes have been undertaken to the manuscript. Well its been four years, or maybe a life time, its hard to tell some days… All of which is good, because nothing about this book has been rushed, there has been some major cutting along the way, the latter half of the book in particular is heavily revised, as is the part played in the narrative by the supporting cast.

One character a minor but notable villain, doesn’t die where I am sure I remember her dying in the original draft, indeed it is unclear if she dies at all now (though quite possibly she does). As I quite like the character in question, who is equally complex in her own nasty way, that rather pleased me, as she stands to return in a bigger role in another novel with luck.

This is a book littered with strong female characters who very defiantly have their own agency as well as their own flaws, it would have been easy for one of them to draw the spot light off the main character. One of the minor flaws of the early draft was that the main characters ‘friend’ Beth had a habit of overshadowing her at times. Beth could carry another novel in her own right, strong, darkly humoured, honourable, unflappable yet with a certain vulnerability and a sentimental streak, she is moved to do what needs to be done and whats right, rather than whats easy, or whats legal… She is a wonderfully well rounded character that could easily sit at the centre of all this, yet in this final version of this novel she remains firmly stage right and best supporting actress through out and never upstages Evie who carry the novel throughout.

That is a hard trick to pull off as a writer. To balance such a strong set of characters and make sure the lead remains firmly the lead is hard. Generally a writer ends up watering down the other characters, something you could not accuse JA Wood of doing here. Nothing has been watered down. Only polished and improved in the four intervening years since I last read of Evie’s world.

But lets leave Evie to one side for a moment and talk about the world which she inhabits. It is a dark and beguiling place. You get the sense that at the heart of this world is a civilisation in decline. Parts of the great city she inhabits are rundown, abandoned or over run with criminal gangs. A whole ward of the city was once powered by strange devices run on ‘ebony’ a dark essence drawn from the aetheric plane. The Ebony ward is not alone in its sense of decay and decline, whatever Ebony actually the taping of the aetheric plain for power is in part responsible for the slow breaking down of society. There was a war, a catastrophic war at some time in the past, and the world is what survived. Some people have powers, chimeric powers, that cause some to label them demons. To control and contain them they are tethered by priest of a complex religion of ten gods , the ten travellers, using a strange substance called taroais that is lethal to chimera, binding them and their powers, which also slowly kills them. And this is the progressive nation…

This is part steam punk, or perhaps diesel punk, part urban fantasy, part dark fantasy and a whole lot of fascinating. Not least because the writer doesn’t make the mistake of explaining the world too deeply, so the readers perception and the writers vision may not be entirely the same, but it entices you further in with snippets here and there. We get the names of a couple of the ten gods and only the vaguest idea what each god is for, yet even this is done with a delicate hand. Evie, we aren’t quite told, has ten studs in her ear, one for each god. While she is not overtly pious she has a habit of touching these much like one might touch a crucifix of a anhk. It subtleties like that which make the characters and the world seem alive and vibrant through the writing without it been forced. We get hints of the worlds history, hints of other nations and hints as to the true nature of chimera. But there is a careful vagueness, and much left to the imagination and it is all the better for it. It leaves you wanting more, while keeping the story flowing.

But back to the characters themselves, if Beth has several layers of complexity, Evie has so many more. A recovering addict, leading a double life, hiding the truth about herself and in deep with the seedier side of society and gangsters forcing her to pay off her debts by making illegal devices for them. The rift between her and Beth haunts her and she is forced to sink or swim and is starting to drown, and all this is before she blackmailed into ‘acquiring’ an object from a second criminal gang, by a woman who knows she is a pulse chimera and how much damage that secret could do both her and her parents. From there things only get more complicated and dangerous for Evie, everything she loves is under threat and she is far from blameless, at least in her eyes, as her Blackmailer is part of a dark conspiracy of rich and powerful people who seek to rid the world of all chimera.

This is a fabulous ride of a novel, through a dark gritty fantasy landscape, with strong characters, betrayals, surprises, shocks, a whole world of imagination to explore and wonder at. There will I am sure be more to come, and I was delighted to go back to it and see how much what had been a good book when I read the early draft four year ago has been revise and polished into something so much more than it was.

J.A.Woods Tethered will be out soon. Its take a few years to write, but is none the worse for that. This is among the best pure adventure I have read in what seems like an age, it rich, dark and leaves you wanting to read more. I can not recommend it enough.