After just two weeks’ training at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, she was made a Petty Officer Wren and sent to the wireless intercept (“WI”) station, or Y-station, at Winterton-on-Sea, north of Great Yarmouth. In early 1941 Stephanie Pigott answered an appeal by the Admiralty on the BBC for German speakers. Ages 14 up.Stephanie Higham, who has died aged 102, was one of the last of the Y-service Wrens, a secret, elite group of women who waged wireless war against the Axis in the Second World War. Calista is a nuanced, sympathetic antagonist Wren's struggles between love and duty, fate and free will are transfixing and Wren and Tarquin's forbidden romance feels at once modern and folkloric.

Despite a contrived setup and an overly complex mythology, Watson's core characters still enchant. Although Wren's augur abilities allow her to see the future, she fails to predict Calista's intense scrutiny or the attraction she feels for Calista's bodyguard, Tarquin Gallagher. Without access to nemeta, the augurs will become extinct, so 17-year-old Wren Silke goes undercover as an intern at Harkness House, the charity run by chief judge Calista Harkness, hoping to glean tactical information. Both groups draw their power from sacred objects, called nemeta, most of which are now controlled by judges. Set in present-day Ireland, this YA debut from South African thriller writer Watson (The Cutting Room) tells the tale of two warring clans of druidic descendants: the augurs, who have a preternatural affinity for patterns, and the judges, who have a magical connection to nature. This spellbinding YA debut from Mary Watson is part thriller, part love story and entirely captivating. And she may need to decide which she'd rather lose, her heart or her life. Not only has she come to the attention of powerful judge Cassa Harkness, but she is also falling dangerously in love with the one person she shouldn't. If she can uncover a long-buried secret, she can save her family and end the judges' reign once and for all.īut as the web of lies, deceit, and betrayal thickens around Wren, she hurtles toward a truth that threatens to consume her and reveal who she really is. Though she knows the risks, Wren also goes on the hunt, taking a dangerous undercover assignment as an intern at enemy headquarters, the Harkness Foundation. If they learned the truth, the game would surely turn deadly. but they know nothing of her real identity. Her pursuers belong to the judges, a group in control of an ancient, powerful magic they stole from her own people, the augurs. Once a year, Wren is chased through the woods near her rural Ireland hometown in a warped version of a childhood game.

Thrilling, atmospheric, and filled with ancient magic, this lyrically written YA debut is perfect for readers of The Raven Cycle and Wink Poppy Midnight.

The wren hunt