View source for Fire Witch by Matt Ralphs

{{infobox2
|title= Fire Witch
|sort= 
|author= Matt Ralphs
|reviewer= Linda Lawlor
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= An exciting tale of evil, cruelty and magic in an England ravaged by civil war and the notorious witch trials. In the midst of all the fear, violence and bloodshed a young girl struggles to rescue her beloved mother without revealing that she herself is a witch.
|rating=5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=288
|publisher=Macmillan Children's Books
|date=August 2016
|isbn=9781447283577
|website=https://mattralphs.wordpress.com
|video=
|aznuk=1447283570
|aznus=B01CYBCGKO
|cover=1447283570
}} 

It's the middle of the seventeenth century and England is in turmoil. Cromwell is determined to impose his will by any means necessary, rebels in the North are massing to stop him and Matthew Hopkins, Witch Hunter General, stalks the land. If you are old and crotchety, have a squint or a hare-lip, or maybe just an unfortunate tendency to talk to your cat, beware – it takes just one spiteful whisper from a neighbour to have you condemned as a servant of the devil and sent to the torture chambers. And in the midst of all this is Hazel, a twelve-year-old fire witch. She needs to find and rescue her mother from the underworld, but the only man who can help is the one who sent her there in the first place: Hopkins' most famous and closely guarded prisoner Nicholas Murrell. 

With such an ominous premise it's no wonder this book, the second in the series, is rather darker than [[Fire Girl by Matt Ralphs|volume one]]. Bramley the opinionated and chatty dormouse who is Hazel's familiar still offers light relief (when he's not curled up in her hair enjoying a quiet snooze or complaining about how hungry he is) but he has his work cut out against the backdrop of ruthless repression, the constant threat of discovery and a horribly painful death . . . and that's before someone starts killing little girls in the grimy alleys of the capital. Much of what you read here rings true: watching people hang or die by fire was considered by many an excellent day's entertainment at the time, and there is enough detail of life in London to make you feel you are right there beside Hazel, Bramley and their companion Titus. The thrills never let up, and tension reaches almost unbearable levels when Hazel disguises herself as a boy and manages to find a job working directly for the feared Witch Hunter himself. 

There comes a point in many thrilling books where the reader looks at the few pages that remain and wonders if the story can possibly be wrapped up satisfactorily. How can so many tangled plot lines be sorted? How can the heroine escape the deadly peril she's in? Fear not – somehow the author manages here to resolve the main issues, reassure the reader and set up the next stage of the adventure, all without unlikely coincidences or sudden plot twists. What happens does so because it has to, because of what went before, and it leaves the reader doubly content: the story has ended well, if not in the way one had expected, and there is the pleasurable excitement of wondering what the next volume will bring. Definitely one not to miss.

Good books stand alone, even if they're in a series, and this story is no exception – the reader is given enough information to follow the plot, and to understand the part-historical, part-fantasy background. But it's well worth starting with volume one [[Fire Girl by Matt Ralphs|Fire Girl]] because it's well-written, and because there are some delightfully funny scenes. And for another thrilling adventure set in the seventeenth century, try [[The Blackthorn Key by Kevin Sands]] – plenty of danger once again, and some eye-watering threats to life and limb. Time-travellers beware: this is clearly not the safest of centuries! 

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