Wynter’s Thief
Sherryl Jordan
OneTree House
Pub. 2019

04 May, 2021

Wynter’s Thief by Sherryl Jordan is a beautiful story about love, friendship and trust. I really enjoyed this book; I loved the way it was written and how easy it was to follow. When there are two perspectives in a book, sometimes I find it hard to read them. But with this book, the two main characters and their different perspectives were not completely separate; they were entangled with each other which made it so easy to understand what was happening.

One of the perspectives belonged to a girl called Wynter, a young woman who is trapped by her father as she is a water witch and people pay her father for her ability. People come to Wynter’s father when their villages are going through a drought as Wynter can find water, even if the water is not seen. Seeing as this is her father’ s only way to make money, he keeps her chained to a caravan till the time comes when she is needed.

The other main perspective in Wynter’s Thief is a young man called Fox. Fox is a thief who has grown up on the streets since he was as little as the age of three and has to learn to steal to survive. Unfortunately Fox was one day arrested when he was caught at the age of four and was given a brand on his face. This allows people to know he is a thief. Despite all of this, Fox is a kind hearted and thoughtful person who wouldn’t dare harm anyone.

Wynter is brought to a village and tells the village people where to dig for the water. But after a day of digging, the people of the town start to get angry because there is no water to be found. They start to doubt Wynter’s abilities and instead turn on her. They call the priest who deems her a witch and states that she must be killed to prevent her cursing everyone. While she waits for her trial she goes back to her caravan and her father chains her up.

Fox happens to be walking along a road to find this girl who he finds extremely beautiful and goes to talk to her. He sees that she is chained up and with him being a talented thief picks the lock and the two run away. This is the start of their friendship.

Wynter and Fox go on the run and they then hide in the forest, but you are going to have to read the book to find out what will happen next.

I absolutely loved this book because it was attention-grabbing right from the start. I loved how intense it was and how I just couldn’t put the book down because something was always going on. It was really interesting as it was cool to see both perspectives of people going through the same thing but experiencing different emotions and having completely different thoughts on the matter.

I would recommend this book to older readers such as teens because of how intense and emotional it is. I believe it is suited to older readers because I do not think that younger readers would understand the emotion quite as well. This book is one that I would recommend to people who like fiction books about fantasy and older times.

• Caitlin is 16 and lives in Palmerston North.