The prequel to Colfer’s popular middle grade fantasy series, The Land of Stories, this trilogy takes us to the oppressive world of Brystal Evergreen. Chariot Hills and the rest of the Southern Kingdom are ruled by old white men and predictably, religion, and patriarchy reign surpreme. Women can’t read, gender roles are strictly enforced and magic is punishable by death. Brystal is risking ostracization everytime she sneaks library books especially with her prominant Judge father. But then she gets her hand on a banned book and makes a disasterous discovery-she has magic!

From there, Brystal’s world transforms to one she only dreamed of. One filled with adventure and books and belief in her potential that she always believed she was meant for more than housewifery. But it’s also a world filled with hate, death and difficult decisions that will haunt Brystal and change the world forever.

Now, Colfer isn’t subtle about the real world allusions with the fairies representing people who are hunted for things beyond their control-their magic. As it’s explicitly stated, it’s not a choice yet Brystal is sent away to a religious-centric school to cure her “condition” and meets others like her. Then there’s the band called the Righteous Brotherhood who call each other clansmen and wear white hoods to conceal their identities. Yep, as subtle as a brick but I can’t blame him. It’s for middle schoolers and they need to hear these messages especially as Colfer undercuts the realism with really inspirational messages that will hopefully connect with those who feel alone, depressed or otherwise othered.

Because with all the hate, Brystal and her friends face there is also hope and a belief that humanity can be as good as it is awful as long as there are those who can lead by example because everyone deserves to be loved and accepted.

1. A Tale of Witchcraft: The second book in the series has Brystal facing the dogmatic Righteous Brotherhood who have risen up with the legalization of magic and aim to hit the fairies where it hurts by destroying Brystal’s reputation as Fairy Godmother and destroy Brystal herself. Meanwhile, Brystal’s inner conflict may finish her before the Brotherhood does as she deals with her consuming grief over Mrs. Mayweather, the poaching of her students to the Ravencrest School of Witchcraft including her best friend, Lucy and her insistant depressive thoughts. The multiple storythreads were cleverly tied together to make an exciting adventure story and I admired how Colfer tackled such a difficult subject as depression in how deeply it affects Brystal inventing a magic cop-out for her to get over. Also Lucy Goose (no points as to guess who she grows up to be) almost steals the show as Colfer introduces her POV to the story to show magic’s darker half in witchcraft and provides most of the comedic value.
2. A Tale of Magic: This was a great introduction to Brystal’s world filled with charming and distinct characters that readers will later recognize as part of the Fairy Council with Skylene, Tangerina, Emerelda among others. Filled with a cohesive magic system with exccellent mystery-adventure for the kids to tackle, Colfer delves into prejudice, acceptance and self-improvement in an easily digestible way. Like I said, it’s unsubtle about what it’s trying to teach but Colfer’s writing makes what would be preachy to be enjoyable.
3. A Tale of Sorcery: The grand final maintains Colfer’s consistant quality, and has an interesting ticking clock element thanks to the cliffhanger of the previous novel but falters a bit in juggling too many plotlines. They tie together in the end, of course, and makes an epic climax but I lost track of some of them as I was reading so it would be a surprise when one plot thread would appear again. It undercut some of the urgency surrounding the ticking clock plotline as it gets overshadowed by other obstacles.