This is the follow up to Deborah Hewitt’s 2019 debut novel, The Nightjar, and whilst you could launch straight into the Rookery – the prologue will just about get you up to speed – why would you want to? Go start at the beginning...

I think the Rookery is a definite improvement on its predecessor. The writing is tighter, the dialogue less on-the-nose and the characterisation is stronger. Alice, the main character, spends much of her time in The Nightjar making some extraordinarily stupid decisions – that penchant is thankfully no more.

Whilst I enjoyed this book well enough, I did think it that the world-building and descriptive writing lacked sparkle. This series reads like a young adult novel in places, with added sex and swearing, and I’m not sure that will appeal to everyone.

Those who enjoyed The Nightjar will be very satisfied with this superior sequel.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan Publishers for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Rookery is a magical and mysterious book in a weird and wonderful alternative London.

The Rookery is more about Alice heritage, her joining a house and the changes happening in The Rookery / magical London.



I am a nerd so I enjoyed the parts of the story that followed the history around Rookery and Alice. As well as what Alice was learning. As her ability are different to other characters.

There are two great mysteries that keep the pace up and gives the book a lot of drama. There is one element of the mystery regarding the summer tree I guessed in advance. But there was a lot of things a didn't.



Overall The Rookery has an interesting cast of characters, an interesting world and an engaging mystery.

My Rating for The Rookery is 4 out of 5.

I made the mistake of requesting this without realising it is a sequel.

Reading a good percentage as I wanted to see if it could be read standalone (I believe it can), I fell enamoured and will go and buy The Nightjar immediately so I can then follow on with this.

The writing style is exactly up my street and the concept interesting and engaging. I fully imagine this to be a really great read and will endeavour to review it on my socials.

I love this book. I am a huge fan of the world created in the nightjar and the rookery and if I had to pick somewhere to live, it would be this one. Once again Hewitt creates a story of magic and adventure that is both breath taking and heart stopping.

The Rookery is the sequel to The Nightjar, the continuing story of Alice Wyndham, a young woman with magical powers of both life and death. Alice must race to hone her growing skills in order to discover the conspiracy lurking at the centre of the Rookery and to try to stop the destruction of this alternative magical London.

Well. I did not enjoy the style of writing of this book. The world building did not make sense to me and the characters spent a lot of time hissing, drawling and murmuring rather than speaking to each other normally. The plot seemed very ‘fantasy young adult’ to me, although there was a lot of swearing and some sex which indicates the readership is very much intended to be adult.

I’m sure this book will find its audience, but unfortunately it didn’t work out for me.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.

Follow Alice Wyndham into the Rookery, a magical alternate London created to safely harbor those with magical abilities – or so Alice believes. Alice is an aviarist, someone who can see people’s souls in the form of birds, called nightjars. She has also inherited the magical gifts of Mielikki, the goddess of nature. But Alice’s powers have a dark side; she hopes that, by learning to master her other gifts, she’ll be able to quell the deadly magic which threatens her very existence.

It’s not until Alice becomes the victim of a series of unexpected, seemingly inexplicable attacks that she realizes she’s not the only one in trouble. The Summer Tree, the linchpin of this world, is growing, and the Rookery begins crumbling around her. All her hopes and plans are thrown into disarray, and Alice discovers that, instead of running from it, she must embrace her deadly soul to save the people and place she loves – before their entire world falls apart.

The Rookery is a darkly magical contemporary fantasy set a year after the events of The Nightjar, the first book in this duology. Like several other reviewers have noted, I didn’t realize that The Rookery was the second in a series, but that didn’t stop me from absolutely loving this book. In fact, the beginning of the story reiterates the events that led Alice to this point. For those who have read The Nightjar, this might feel a bit redundant; but for someone who accidentally read The Rookery first, the summary helped me get into the story quickly.

The characters, the worldbuilding, the magic system: each element works together so well and creates such a rich, compelling narrative that I truly couldn’t put the book down. Hewitt draws on Finnish myth to build an interesting, complex magic system unlike any I’ve encountered before. The Rookery brims with life, lore, and history of its own; each turn of the page brings something new to discover, a new character to meet. The book left me amazed at the depth of the author’s imagination.

Alice is the kind of heroine I love to read about. She’s flawed but clever, loving but brutal when she needs to be, and she really develops on the page. I appreciate that the minor characters have lives and stories of their own, too; they’re not just devices to move forward Alice’s agenda. Many readers will love the slow burn between Alice and Crowley, but the most interesting and complex relationship in the book, for me, is between Alice and Tuoni. Hewitt masterfully navigates all sorts of relationships – romantic, familial, friendships – making the characters themselves feel so much more real.

While The Rookery is quite firmly fantasy with a bit of romance mixed in, there are some truly horrific scenes in the book, too, which will appeal to readers with a taste for the genre’s darker side. The result of Holly’s membership test, for example, was so surprising, and so gruesome, that it shocked me to read it. I just didn’t expect that level of brutality from the book, or the suddenness of it, which made the world that much more realistic and gave the magic system a cold, unforgiving logic.

Finally, Hewitt’s writing is top notch, making the story compulsively readable. She tightly maps an action-packed tale full of twists, turns, and artfully plotted subtext that provides a highly satisfying pay off at the end. Ultimately, she has created a story and a world that never fails to feel real – one might think it possible to peel back the layers of this world, and step through into the Rookery.

Alice isn’t well, the legacy of her father Tuoni is making her ill, and there’s nothing conventional medicine can do for her. On the other side of the Marble Arch, the Rookery may hold an answer, if she can embrace her unknown mother’s Mielikki side, and join their house, she can drink the draught made from the Summer Tree. And that might just save her.

When I read The Nightjar I loved the alternate London setting with worldbuilding inspired by Finnish mythology. What I didn’t love so much was the main character, but I can say I thawed a little to Alice in this second instalment and I enjoyed it a whole lot more.

I was a bit concerned that I’d forgotten what had happened previously but there is just the right amount of recap at the start of The Rookery to help you get your bearings. The Rookery is a copy of London which deviated in the 1930’s meaning it doesn’t have the war damage and some of it is a little old fashioned. The place is run by four houses, one for each of the main lineages. Mielikki have power over plantlife, Pellervoinen can open doorways and manipulate stone, Ilmarinen can wield fire and Ahti can control water.

Alice has taken a job as a research assistant in the alternate London, supposedly helping Professor Reid study souls, something Alice knows more about than the average citizen. She is an aviarist, able to see the nightjars that guard the souls of the Väki, but since this is a closely guarded secret she can’t really tell Reid that. Mostly she spends her time photocopying (or using the Ditto machine, as it's known in the Rookery).

Meanwhile she must take the tests to join House Mielikki, so she can access the power of the Summer Tree. But something isn’t quite right in the house, is it possible the tree is growing, and is there someone who doesn’t want Alice to join?

I really enjoyed the quasi-academic setting of this one and there are several mysteries to be solved. While there were times that I was frustrated with Alice for not letting people in, it was mostly for the best, and she does seem to have more rounded relationships with people now. I can’t say she’s one of my favourite fantasy protagonists but the rest of it completely made up for anything she was lacking. I actually cared about her this time.

I loved everything about this book. The magic, the love interest, the main character. The Rookery was an amazing sequel that continued Alice's story with finding herself in the world she was thrown into. I love Crowley and how Alice had to work to forgive him instead of just forgetting everything. Deborah Hewitt is a new author on my must buy list.

I did enjoy the first one so I was excited to read this. Unfortunately for me I just couldn’t get into this one in the same way I did the first. I liked the style of writing and it flowed really well. The world was well developed and I enjoyed the fantasy elements. There is plenty of magic in this which I loved and I liked seeing more of the different powers. I enjoyed the growth of Alice’s powers and I really liked her powers. However I didn’t connect to Alice as a main character. She did annoy me in places.
I liked the mystery elements and it kept me reading.
Overall this was an okay read for me.

Although the fault is my own, I hadn't realised this was the sequel to a previous novel. It made the beginning of the book rather slow-paced as the author refers to what happened before. I didn't manage to get caught up in the story, finding the tone more akin to young adult literature than what I'm used to reading. I'm sure this book will find its enthusiastic readers, but it's simply not for me.

Disclaimer: before I start reviewing this, I have to say that Hewitt’s first book, The Nightjar, was one I obsessed over when it came out. I loved it. Her writing style was fluid and readable, her imagination seemingly limitless, the characters all wonderful. To put it plainly, The Rookery had a lot to live up to.

Let me assure you, it more than does. We’re back in the crazy world of the Rookery, the one place in London I think I’d actively choose to live in. It exists in a separate dimension, a place where people who practice magic can live in safety in a town that, aesthetics-wise, is stuck in the 1920’s, and it’s now home to Alice Wyndham, our heroine from The Nightjar, who is attempting to master her powers as an aviarist and as a descendant of Mielikki, the goddess of nature.

However, as you might expect, things aren’t quite that simple. Mielikki’s magic is growing stronger and as a result the Rookery is falling apart. To complicate things even further, her old flame and semi-betrayer Crowley (it’s complicated) wants to make amends for the things he’s done, which throws them both together on a quest to save the Rookery.

Honestly, it was a delight coming back to these characters. What I love about Hewitt’s writing is the imagination that brims from it: the world of the Rookery is so full of life and interesting that I’d read the guidebook if she took the time to write one. On every page you learn about another character, get to unearth another piece of lore or get to poke your nose somewhere new, and it’s a delight.

Alice and Crowley’s complicated relationship dynamic remains one of the best things about the book (we don’t get enough Crowley in the first half of this book, which is understandable but still frustrating) and when they’re together, the pages fizz. I don’t think I’ve ever rooted quite so hard for two characters to get away; Hewitt is a master of the slow burn. Aside from that, I loved Alice’s character development. We left her in a dark place at the end of book one, mourning the death of her best friend Jen, and this book is all about her coming to terms with her identity. She’s a great heroine: flawed, capable and ever-changing.

It also helps that Hewitt’s writing is compulsively readable. She has a capacity for throwing plot-twists at you from out of nowhere, and the end of The Rookery is an absolute rollercoaster that I read so fast I had to go back and re-read to properly digest.

Just as magical as The Nightjar, this book is yet another gem from Hewitt. My only complaint? That it wasn’t longer.

The anticipated sequel to The Nightjar is an absolutely stunning contemporary fantasy, richly detailed,darkly sinister and magically addictive.

Set a year after the events in The Nightjar and still following Alice Wyndham, who- after discovering her ability to see people’s souls in the form of birds called Nightjars (and the existence of a magical world parallel to her own),has only three goals: to join house Mielikki,learn to master her magic and to find out who she really is.

But as Alice comes to terms with her inherited legacy,the Rookery begins to crumble around her.With so much at stake, it’s time to decide how far is she’s willing to go to save the city and people she loves.

I cannot tell you how excited I was to read this after finishing The Nightjar and I really didn’t think It could get any better- I mean what could top a magical death cult? But The Rookery manages to surpass the dark charm and inventive storytelling that made me love this series.

Alice is a charmingly flawed character (actually Hewitt writes flawed characters quite well) and the relationship between Alice and Crowley is quite slow to get going, however it does eventually pick up. The ending was great, truly a rollercoaster of revelations- some I hadn’t even seen coming.

As in The Nightjar, the world building was phenomenal and the use of finnish mythology/folklore in the world- building was a breath of fresh air as we usually only see a lot of Greek/Roman/Viking or British mythology in fantasy.

I would have to recommend to any fans of contemporary fantasy fiction,or alternative London settings.

A huge thank you to Pan Macmillan and Net Galley for the ARC.

This book was a little surprising at first as I did not realise it was a sequel (my own fault and no one else's) though to be honest that did not take away from the pleasure I found in the story. The Author gave insights that had been learned in the first book in the best way, and it felt not at all repetitive to me (if I had read the first book.) I found Alice, the main character quite intriguing. She was not perfect, she did not make silly mistakes to fill a plot gap, and she did not have the whiny quality that most main characters have. I really liked her. As well as most of the other characters that she comes across or interacts with. And while some aspects of the story may have been a little obvious in their direction, there were still plenty of twists and turns that kept me on my toes, as it were. A great story in a world that is wonderfully fleshed out, and I hope there are more along the way.