Today I am sharing my review for The 13th Witch by Mark Hayden, and this is the first book in The King’s Watch Series. This book came to my attention during a recent Blog Tour organised by Anne at Random Things Tours.

Did you know that the gods can use mobile phones?
They can, and Odin has a message for Conrad

Conrad Clarke, former RAF pilot and alleged gangster gets a text – and a visit – from The Allfather.
Odin has a challenge for Conrad: sign up to protect England from wild magick and get a commission in the King’s Watch.
All he has to do is find a missing witch. Simple.
Conrad never could resist a challenge. Before you can say “Ragnarok”, he’s plunged into a world of gods, mages, witches, dwarves and one very aggressive giant mole.
But the witch doesn’t want to be found, and powerful mages will kill to keep her hidden. Going back isn’t an option. Going forward looks a lot like death.
Armed with nothing but a sense of humour and a willingness to cheat, Conrad has to find the Witch and save his life.
Treat yourself to a copy now and experience a whole new universe of magick. And moles…

The synopsis gives a very good idea as to what this book is about. It definitely caught my eye enough to go and buy a copy. What I discovered was a book with an eclectic mix of characters from old legend and folklore with a modern setting.

Conrad seems to take these random mythological characters in his stride, not phased by them at all. He decides to accept the mission to find a missing witch and so enters a world of magik. The mission itself appears straight forward but I felt it turned into a mission of trying to work out who to trust.

As this is the first book in the series it does have the feeling of getting to know the characters to it. There are backstories for the main characters and some of the facts about magik. It is like setting down the base for following books in the series.

As well as magik based characters there are also humans as well. These are just as interesting and I am curious to see where the story goes with them. It does have a slower pace to it, but I would expect this to a certain extent with this being the first, but it does start to pick pace in the second half of this story.

I found this to be an interesting and enjoyable read, I do have the 2nd book in the series on its way. I would say this is more of a light fantasy read and it is a really good introduction into what I think will be a good series to follow, and one I would recommend.

Mark Hayden is the pen name of Adrian Attwood. He lives in Westmorland with his wife, Anne.

He has had a varied career: working for a brewery, teaching English and being the Town Clerk in Carnforth. He is now a part-time writer and part-time house-husband.

You can find Mark on Goodreads and on the Paw Press website.

Purchase Link Amazon UK

Many thanks for reading my post, a like or share would be amazing 🙂 xx