The Thickety is a children's Dark Fantasy novel series by American author J. A. White.
Thirteen year-old Kara Westfall has been taught all her life to fear two things: Witches, and the otherworldly forest known as the Thickety. However, the discovery of her late mother's magical grimoire spurs Kara onto an adventure that will teach her there's more to witchcraft than she's been told.
The books included in this series are:
- A Path Begins (2014)
- The Whispering Trees (2015)
- Well of Witches (2016)
- The Last Spell (2017)
This work contains examples of:
- Addictive Magic: The black grimoire's power is an obvious allegory for drugs. It gives abused outcast Kara a sense of power and an outlet for her frustration, but it becomes physically painful to go without casting spells and more so to be away from the book. She even grows possessive of it and gets paranoid about it getting stolen.
- All of the Other Reindeer: As the daughter of a convicted witch, the villagers treat Kara like a time bomb and allow her and her family to suffer in poverty.
- Alpha Bitch: Grace Stone is the daughter of the Fen'de, De'Noren's religious leader and highest authority, and has the villagers' tripping over themselves to please.
- The Beastmaster: Kara's magic is the summoning and commanding of animals, insects and creatures of the Thickety.
- Belief Makes You Stupid: Fen'de Stone thinks a sermon can stop Grace's grunts from beating him to death. He is extremely wrong.
- Big Sister Instinct: Kara would brave any danger for her younger brother and Living Emotional Crutch Taff.
- Birth-Death Juxtaposition: Kara's mother gave birth to Taff the same night she was executed.
- Conscience Makes You Go Back: Kara's father insists they flee the island to escape Grace Stone's magic rampage, but Kara has come to understand the villagers who mistreat them are more ignorant and afraid than evil and decides that's enough to deserve rescuing.
- Create Your Own Villain: Fen'de Stone considered Grace his greatest shame and harshly disciplined her for the simplest things. When Grace takes the black grimoire, she decides if her father wants to persecute witches she'll give him a witch.
- Cruel Twist Ending: A Path Begins ends with Kara heroically saving De'Noren, only for a mob led by Clen in her father's body to drive her and Taff into the Thickety and Sordyr's clutches.
- Cult of Personality: The Children of the Fold is a Puritan-esque cult that praises The Witch Hunter Timoth Clen and follow his collection of rules called The Path.
- Delicate and Sickly: Taff has been weak and prone to coughing fits from birth. Kara manages to cure him with a healing spell.
- Don't Go in the Woods: The Thickety is not your standard creepy forest. It is ruled over by Sordyr the demon, full of nightmarish monsters, and grows so rapidly that people employed to clear it barely make one dent per day.
- Drunk with Power: Magic is not inherently evil but a witch lacking in Heroic Willpower can lose herself in it.
- Dumb Muscle: As Grace cannot physically intimidate her victims, she uses the giant boy Simon Lodder as her toadie. Simon used to be a normal boy, but getting lost in the Thickety traumatized him into a lumbering imbecile.
- Evil Cripple: Grace's leg was deformed at birth and she uses a peg leg with a cane. She's cruel, selfish and manipulative while playing the role of a
Wheelchair Woobie in public. - The Fundamentalist: Fen'de Stone truly believes the only way to live righteously is to follow Timoth Clen's commandments to the letter, denouncing anything abnormal as magic and purging it. His daughter is not safe from his intolerance.
- Godzilla Threshold: In the climax of A Path Begins, Fen'de Stone calls upon Kara, whom he just imprisoned and interrogated, to save De'Noren from a power-mad Grace when his approved methods don't work.
- Hostage for MacGuffin: Grace has a local boy lure Kara away while Simon kidnaps Taff to exchange him for the grimoire.
- Internalized Categorism: Kara grew up hearing that witches are evil incarnate, so it's no surprise she worries that she's evil when her natural talent for magic is revealed.
- Invisible to Normals: A grimoire's pages appear blank to a person with no magical potential.
- Kids Are Cruel: Grace Stone is Kara's age and a budding psychopath. She wears a sweet and demure mask, but she enjoys causing pain and can turn violent when she doesn't get what she wants. The black grimoire's influence turns her into a tyrant who kills For the Evulz.
- Madness Mantra: After his wife was executed, Kara's father became a borderline Empty Shell who scribbles "Forgive Me" over and over in notebooks between periods of catatonia.
- Oculothorax: Kara is guided by a raven-like creature with no head and a giant eye in its chest. It communicates by changing the color of its eye.
- Only Friend: Lucas Walker doesn't buy into the rumors surrounding Kara and is instead her loyal companion. When she admits her witchcraft to him, Lucas finds it easier to believe witches can be good than believe Kara is bad.
- Personality Powers: The kind of magic a witch uses reflects her talents and values. Kara the animal whisperer becomes The Beastmaster whereas Grace the Control Freak favors spells that turn people into her mindless slaves. Kara's mother Helena could heal wounds and grow plants, which ultimately proves she was a good person.
- Self-Disposing Villain: Realizing that Kara won't fight her to the death, Grace commits Spiteful Suicide to deny her rival a happy ending by casting her last spell: Kara's father is possessed by Timoth Clen and turns De'Noren against her, leaving the Thickety her only refuge.
- Small, Secluded World: De'Noren is on an island cut off from the rest of the world. The Children of the Fold view the outside world as a den of rampant sin, while outsiders view them as religious nuts.
- Spell Book: All witches have their own grimoire and every spell cast uses up a page. The golden rule is to not use the last page, or the pact will be fulfilled and the grimoire will collect the witch's soul.
- Synchronization: Kara feels her summoned beasts' pain when they're killed.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Kara's mother sealed her fate when she tried to share the wonders of magic with her best friends. One couldn't handle the power and killed herself and her husband, the crime Helena was found guilty of.
- Vain Sorceress: At the height of her power, Grace turns her stark white hair blonde and gives herself two healthy legs.
- Villain Takes an Interest: Sordyr senses great potential in Kara and tries to lure her to his side.
- Wicked Witch: Timoth Clen's exploits are full of evil witches he killed.
- You Mean "Xmas": The Children of the Fold's Shadow Festival is pretty much Halloween.
