(Beyond the Faerie Rath Book 1)
By Hanna Park
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Oh look, a nice quiet inheritance story (in which the inherited property comes with unsettling visions, fae politics, and a deeply inconvenient attraction to a man whose life you may or may not be about to complicate beyond repair).
The Scald Crow is a dark, sensual tale of identity and inheritance, of old magic stirring beneath modern life, and of one woman discovering that her past is rather more complicated than she had been led to believe.
I went into The Scald Crow expecting a fairly standard set-up. You know the sort: mysterious inheritance, trip to Ireland, a slightly crumbling property, perhaps a few secrets tucked away in dusty drawers.
Instead, the book takes one look at that expectation and immediately hands Calla a vision she very much did not ask for.
Calla Sweet arrives in Ireland to settle the estate of a man she barely knew, which would already be awkward enough without the small detail that she can apparently sense things she really ought not to be able to.
This becomes particularly noticeable when she meets Colm O’Donnell and very quickly realises that something is not quite right.
As first impressions go, it’s not ideal.
Colm, understandably, is not especially thrilled to discover that the woman he has just met may have some kind of unsettling insight into his family’s circumstances. On the other hand, he is also very much attracted to her, which complicates matters, as these things tend to do.
Because nothing says “promising romance” quite like mystery, tension, and the creeping suspicion that fate may have taken a rather personal interest in your life.
Most of the story follows Calla as she attempts to untangle her inheritance, her increasingly vivid visions, and her growing connection to Colm. Unfortunately for her, the more she learns, the clearer it becomes that this is not simply a matter of paperwork and property.
It is, in fact, a matter of old magic, hidden truths, and a number of people who know far more than they are willing to say.
Quite a number of people.
Calla spends much of the book trying to answer a series of increasingly complicated questions about who she is, where she belongs, and why everything seems to be happening now. And every time she gets close to an answer, something shifts.
Usually in a way that raises at least two further questions.
Meanwhile, Colm is dealing with his own set of difficulties, including family tensions, past losses, and the growing realisation that the woman he is falling for is not, strictly speaking, ordinary.
To his credit, he handles this with a mixture of concern, determination, and a willingness to carry on regardless, which is either very romantic or a triumph of questionable judgement depending on your perspective.
Possibly both.
Their relationship develops with considerable intensity. This is not a slow-burn “we shall talk about our feelings over several months” situation. This is very much a “we have met, something strange is happening, and we are going to lean into it immediately” arrangement.
Which works rather well, largely because neither of them is entirely in control of what is happening.
There is also a strong sense throughout the book that Ireland itself is watching. The folklore is not decorative; it is active, present, and occasionally unsettling. The world Calla has stepped into is one where old stories are not stories at all, but something much closer to reality.
And Calla is very much in the middle of it.
What I enjoyed most about the book is how the mystery continues to expand. It begins with a simple inheritance, then becomes something deeper, stranger, and rather more dangerous.
Every answer comes with consequences.
And just when it feels as though things might settle into something resembling clarity, the story shifts again, reminding you that this is only the beginning of something much larger.
Inheritance, folklore, hidden identities, intense attraction, and a heroine discovering she is far more entangled in everything than she ever expected.
What can I say? This one starts with a house and very quickly becomes something else entirely.
I had a great time with it.
You can grab your copy of this book over on Amazon.
Hanna Park
`I began my writing career in the pre-dawn of a winter morning while my husband snored like a train. We could call my husband the catalyst. If it weren’t for him, I would never have gone to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee, feed the cat, and sit on the loveseat in front of the fire. It was there, in those moments of wondrous quiet, that I did something I had never thought possible. I opened my laptop, and while the coffee went cold, I wrote a story. My husband had no idea that these sojourns to the loveseat in front of the fire would become a daily occurrence, that writing would become an obsession, but the cat knew. She knows everything.
I write stories that make you laugh, make you cry, and make you love. Thank you, friends, for reading!
In the beginning, there was an empty page.
I am a writer who lives in Muskoka, Canada, with a husband who snores, a hungry cat, and an almost perfect canine––he’s an adorable little shit.
