If you’re looking for a short read to pass the time, whether you have only a few hours to spare or you reading mood has been reduced due to external circumstances, then The River Has Roots is something for you to check out. With it’s immersive prose, beautiful illustrations, and gripping tale, it is full of emotion and vivid imagery sure to grab your attention and help you out of a reading rut.

“Oh what is stronger than a death? Two sisters singing with one breath.” In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family. There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees. But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favour of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters’ bond but also their lives will be at risk…

This 100 page read is succinct yet full of lush description, compelling magic, and words that sing off the page. It is a novel that will mesmerise you from the opening phrase, drawing you in with every lulling word, and get you bursting with emotion. The poetic prose is so stunning, feeling as much like a poem or a song as the plot of the novel itself, and I could not get over the crisp detail. The River Has Roots really feels like an enchantment to me, and I am all the more willing to let it drag me away from real life. It is no wonder that This Is How You Lose The Time War is so popular, and I hope The River Has Roots will receive the same love and praise.

Given the book is only small, there is little more I can say without feeling like I am giving the plot away or digging too far into it. I want you to read it for yourselves, so I will end my review here. But let me just make it clear that The River Has Roots is a perfect short story for fantasy readers out there, both low fantasy and high fantasy, cosy and epic, and all the stops in between. It is a stunning work of magic, and I have a strong feeling I will be coming back to it as the weeks go by.