[BBNYA 2022 Finalist Tour] Book Review: Toby and the Silver Blood Witches by Sally Doherty

Happy Hump Day, my lovely peeps🐥!
And a grand welcome to Summer! I hope it won’t be blazing this year, but no matter what, I always look forward to the change of seasons.

Today’s post, we’re featuring something special! We’ll be turning the spotlight towards BBNYA 2022’s winning and first place book: Toby and the Silver Blood Witches! I loved this book so much and I can’t wait to share it with all of you.

So…what IS BBNYA?

BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.  If you are an author and wish to learn more about the BBNYA competition, you can visit the official website http://www.bbnya.com or Twitter @bbnya_official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

Title: Toby and the Silver Blood Witches
Author: Sally Doherty
Genre: Fiction, Middle Grade, Fantasy, Magic
Edition: eBook
Length: 240 Pages
Published: 5 July 2021
Publisher: Soaring Skies Publishing

LINKS:
Goodreads: [LINK]
Amazon UK: [LINK]
Amazon USA: [LINK]
Amazon Canada: [LINK]

Disclaimer: Thank you to the author and BBNYA for an e-copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

A sinister plot. A hidden city in the sky. A boy with an impossible choice.

Twelve year old Toby has little time for friends or football since his mum fell ill. All he wants is to stay at home and keep an eye on her.

But mysterious things are happening beyond his garden hedge. Who is the figure at the window behind the barbed wire fence? And why is there a strange woman in his attic with a broken broom and bothersome pet bat?

Toby becomes entangled in an adventure of flying dogs, sparking hiccups and dangerous escapes. An innocent, young witch has been captured by a secretive organization which will stop at nothing to find out how magic works. Toby must rescue her and time is running out.

I. ADORED. THIS. BOOK.

Toby is a young boy and carer to his mother who suffers from ME (chronic fatigue syndrome) and this means that Toby spends much of his day, if not at school, caring for his mother’s needs, cooking meals, aiding her when she needs. One day, Toby hears a ruckus in his attic and when he goes up there, to his surprise, he sees an injured woman who claims to be a witch and Toby thinks yeah right. But to his surprise, she does end up performing little stunts that nothing but magic could explain! Suddenly,Toby finds himself in a conflict that’s not his own and only he can be the hero the witches desperately needs.

I loved the world-building in this book. Taking place here (in the real world), Toby comes to find out there’s a whole hidden community, magic, magical creatures, and bad and terrible organizations out there that mean these witches harm! The Little Witchery was such an amusing and wonderful place, full of interesting things to explore; foods, people, heck, even the houses show a general status of a witch’s well-being!

The characters were all fantastic. I hated Toby’s bullies, with all my heart. There’s also Toby’s friends who were so supportive and I loved them dearly and despite their minimal appearance throughout the book, they were memorable in their own ways. The witches were so lively. Toby’s having a rough time between taking care of his mother and not letting the secret out (that he’s taking care of his mother) for fear that they deem his mother unsuitable in caring for young Toby and takes him away and through this, the witches show their care and appreciation for Toby in the sidelines by protecting him from the bullies or attempting to help around the house. The animals also held a pretty special place in my heart. There’s brave little Barnaby the fluttermouse and a winged golden retriever called a Golden Retrieagle!

The plot of this book made it a page-turner as well. I could barely put it down! From the very beginning with Toby dealing with a random stranger in his attic (who won’t leave) to meeting the other witches, coming up with a rescue plan, visiting a hidden community and seeing mind-blowing creatures, taking care of his bullies, and all the way to the end, it was a wild ride. Toby was such an amazing character and a great kid; his mind constantly straying to his mother and who would care for her if something were to happen to him. He, despite not wanting to bring trouble to himself and his mother, and despite being scared, he still takes up the witches’ mission and provides as much aid as he can, even to the point of putting himself in major danger. 

With a scary and crazy climax, this was an emotion-ridden read with tons of little twists and its own light reliefs. I really enjoyed this book and hope that there’s eventually a little more, expanding on the Little Witchery and some of the characters that came in the end.

The book also brought awareness and attention to ME or chronic fatigue syndrome and goes in depth with it when it comes to Toby’s mother, who is bed-bound. The author, who has ME herself explains, in the end of the book, the varying degrees of ME including how some cases are so severe, those with it may be house or even bed-bound much like Toby’s mother. She also leaves resources for both carers/family members and those who suffer from ME as well as a link specially directed towards resources for young carers.

A fantastic book, I’d recommend and wouldn’t hesitate to pick this book back up to share a read with my niece and nephew!

Sally Doherty lives in leafy Surrey with her husband and three-legged (but speedy) rescue dog. After studying French and German at university, she worked for a year in London before unexpectedly falling ill with M.E. Being stuck at home and often in bed for sixteen years, however, has lit a cauldron of stories bubbling inside her imagination.

Sally’s debut book and the first in a trilogy, TOBY AND THE SILVER BLOOD WITCHES, was a finalist for The Wishing Shelf Awards 2021 and shortlisted for both The Selfies and The Rubery Book Awards 2022.

Website and newsletter: www.sallydohertyauthor.com
Twitter: @Sally_writes
Instagram: @sallydohertywrites
Facebook: www.facebook.com/sallydohertywrites