In the Heart of Hidden Things by Kit Whitfield - #TuesdayTeaser

Hello and welcome to this week's Tuesday Teaser. The place where we take a sneaky peek at a book that has caught my eye.

This week we are looking at In the Heart of Hidden Things by Kit Whitfield.

Kit wrote the book during the first lockdown in 2020, to escape her challenging day to day life. She escaped into a world of folklore and mythology, set in a small rural community in England. Kit was World Fantasy Award nominated for her last novel In Great Waters back in 2009, and In the Heart of Hidden Things marks her return to writing and is the first in a duology.

Have you read any of her books? I would love to know what you thought of them.

The Blurb

Everyone knows that if you fall afoul of the People, you must travel the miles to Gyrford, where uncounted generations of fairy-smiths have protected the county with cold iron, good counsel and unvarnished opinions about your common sense.

But shielding the weak from the strong can make enemies. Ephraim Brady has money and power, and the bitter will to hurt those who cross him. And if he can't touch elder farrier Jedediah Smith, he can harm those the Smiths care about.

The Smiths care about Tobias Ware, born on a night when the blazing fey dog Black Hal roared past the Wares' gate. Tobias doesn't understand the language or laws of men, and he can't keep away from the Bellame woods, where trespass is a hanging offence. If Toby is to survive, he needs protection.

It should be a manageable job. Jedediah Smith has a head on his shoulders, and so too (mostly) does his son Matthew. Only Matthew's son John has turned out a little . . . uncommon. But he means well.

It wasn't his fault the bramble bush put on a berry-head and started taking offence. Or that Tobias upset it. But John's not yet learned that if you follow the things other folk don't see, they might drag those you love into the path of ruin.

In the Beginning...

Prologue

At the centre of any village stands the smithy, where you can expect deals to be shaken on and conflicts to be shaken out, but if you need fairy-smithing, you must travel the miles to Gyrford. At the time Jedediah Smith held the forge, he and his kin had been master craftsmen in that trade, father to son, for longer than anyone could recall - and it just had to be hoped that each new son would have a head on his shoulders, for if you need fairy-smithing, you need it badly. When your're trying to till the earth and the stones sit up and argue with you, or you enter the dairy to find something untenable stirring the curds with long green fingers, it's a time for iron: the People abhor it, and a skilled farrier might be the only thing between you and disaster. We build our houses with sense and geometry and plough our fields with toil and patience, and all the while, a blink away are the People, dancing and tearing, gifting and stealing, snatching up fury and scattering light, feeding on air.

You do not war with the People unless they war on you, but if matters edge towards a precipice, the fairy-smith will be the one to fight for you. That is, if a fight cannot be avoided, and certainly they preferred other means: Jedediah on the grounds that only a fool borrows trouble, Matthew on the grounds that fighting is a sad business, and John - well, they were worried about Johnny. And even John wasn't to blame for the deaths that autumn, not really; he wouldn't have wised anyone an end that bloody. But sometimes, if you are not to be crushed, you need a fairy-smith at your back...

Just this short extract has been enough to grab me and to catapult it up my reading list. What do you think? Has it grabbed you too?