Once Upon A Fever - Angharad Walker

Sisters Ani and Payton Darke live with in St Jude's hospital where their father is a methic and their mother is a patient.  Everything in the world changed after the Turn, where people grew sick due to having excessive feelings.  When their mother became unwell, falling into an eternal sleep, the family moved from their home to the hospital where their father spent his time searching for a cure.  The sisters are also intent on helping their mother but have very different ways of approaching this: Payton spends her time shadowing methics, sneaking into lectures and reading about medical practice so she can one day become a methic herself; whilst Ani prefers to look at remedies that have been used in the past.  When Ani discovers Kitt who has Midas-fingers, being held under the hospital, she worries about what is happening.  Determined to help him, she heads back down to see him but ends up embroiled in a medical demonstration which creates huge amounts of tension between the family.  This leads Ani to run away, with Payton in tow desperately trying to change her mind; however, when the pair become split, their lives take on very different journeys and, separately, they begin to discover that things might not always be as they seem.

Having loved the darkness Angharad created in The Ash House, I was thrilled to be delving into her second book and I wasn't disappointed.  Once Upon A Fever is a set in a gothic world that Walker creates fabulously.  Based in Lundain, the story is largely set in two very different hospitals: St Jude's and Queen Cleo's and the images built create vivid pictures in the mind of a dystopian world where society feels divided and where life has changed quite considerably since the Turn.  I know that Walker began writing this before COVID and the premise of the illness is different, but the despair and the sense of helplessness I feel is definitely there.  Lundain itself seems very cut off for the sisters at the beginning of the book and they appear to be leading a very sheltered life within the walls of St Jude's, hidden away from many of the realities of what is happening, especially the notion that many people in the city are struggling to survive.  It's a hard time where people seem to have forgotten the natural world which is cut off and inaccessible.

This is a world based on the idea that feelings are bad for us and that any feelings that are perceived as negative should be eliminated.  People are dissuaded from feeling an excess of anything (happy, exciting, angry, jealous, sad...) and control plays a big part in the book: control of emotions, self-control as well as control of others in various different guises.  There is very much an expectancy of being restricted and not letting go (and I wonder whether that reflects the time in which the book was written).  Whilst we all need to know how to read other people's emotions, the idea is very much taken to a new level in the book and again reflects the control that runs through the plot.

As I type this, it is Mental Health Awareness Week and it feels appropriate to be writing a review for this book now.  I can't imagine a world where feelings have to be suppressed and controlled.  Indeed, I spend a lot of time as a teacher (and as a mum) encouraging people to share and embrace their feelings, that no feelings are bad for you and acceptance of our feelings is a good thing.  I cannot imagine living in a world where feelings have to be suppressed in such a way.

There is a darkness that lurks within the pages Once Upon A Fever, hidden beneath the surface, rather like the feelings that are so desperately attempting to be squashed, and it is expertly woven into the plot so you do not always realise it is there whilst you are reading; it's only once you stop and mull over what is happening that you begin to appreciate  the layers that the book contains.  However, in contrast, there are also great big dollops of hope, love, friendship, strength and perseverance that shine through the plot.  All of which will tug at your emotions (the ones you really shouldn't be having!).   

It is a book that will make you think (whilst you are reading it and long after you have finished the last page), and (hopefully) it is a book that will make you grateful for every single emotion you have, after all, 'There is no cure for your feelings.' 

Released on the 7th July, Once Upon A Fever is a deliciously compelling story of control, love and hope that readers won't be able to put down - I know I couldn't!