But how can Nathan find his father when his every action is tracked, when there is no one safe to trust, not even family, not even the girl he loves? Trapped in a cage, beaten and handcuffed, he must escape before his seventeenth birthday, at which point he will receive three gifts from his father and come into his own as a witch-or else he will die. Both groups of witches see Nathan as their greatest threat-or their greatest weapon. Nathan's father is the world’s most powerful and cruel witch, and his mother is dead. In a modern-day England where two warring factions of witches live alongside humans, one sixteen-year-old boy is trapped between the two sides. “A bewitching new thriller.”- The Wall Street Journal “An enthralling fantasy in the Harry Potter tradition.”- Time magazine The final pages make it clear that this is very much the first book in the series, offering readers only a tantalising introduction to Nathan's story.The inspiration for the Netflix series The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself Spare, dark and violent, it paints a vivid portrait of Nathan's alienation, and the brutality of his society. Fast-paced, gripping and gruesome, it is a distinctly different take on witches, magic and the paranormal that is certainly not for the faint-hearted. There has been a huge amount of 'buzz' around Sally Green's debut novel. But how can he ever escape - and without anyone left to trust, or turn to, what will become of him? Somehow he must survive their torture, and escape before his birthday, so he can receive the traditional 'three gifts' or else he will die.

Soon, he is trapped in a cage, beaten, handcuffed and completely at the mercy of his captors. But as he grows older, he finds himself hunted.

Ostracised by the White Witch community, pitied by some and feared by others, he's used to being an outcast. His father, Marcus, whom he has never met, is the world's most powerful and cruel Black Witch his mother is dead, and he's forced to live as a 'half-code', continually under suspicion from those around him. In a modern-day Britain in which witches live alongside humans, Nathan is caught between the 'good' White Witches and the 'bad' Black Witches.

Half bad book