I enjoyed this short dark fantasy story about a young woman in a creepy castle. The author did a great job in setting the scene, which was why I was a bit disappointed by how predictable the ending was. That said, I would read more by this author, especially if the price was right

This short story is set in a world I would love to know more about. Despite it's length you are immersed in the atmosphere of the house and the people who live there. But be warned, it's not a happy ever after story. A five out of five on all fronts.

Waif is a fantasy story written in away to make the reader anxious about what comes next. We (the readers) know from the start that Waif must meet some nasty situation, because it is that type of story, however we are kept guessing as the plot develops. Nigel Edwards does some experimenting with his writing and the outcome to my mind is very successful. In using roles in place of names he made it so easy to visualise all of the characters. Too often when reading short stories I have to retrace my steps to find out where some character, who's name I remember but can't place, fits into the story. Using titles rather than names allows the reader to build up a mental picture of the characters which is much more vivid than any author can describe. My mental picture of Waif was so strong that I wanted to protect her from the oncoming experience as though she was my granddaughter. I couldn't put the book down until I had tried my best to mentally protect my new granddaughter by wishing the author to change his script.
There are two points that I was not happy about. The first is that my visual picture of Waif was nothing like the picture on the book cover, I think that an outline pencil sketch would have allowed me to visualise her more readily. The second point is that I found it difficult to decide the age of Waif for my mental picture. We know that she was only 9yrs old at the start of the story, but I seem to have missed picking up her age as the story developed, so I visualised her as 19 yrs old. Nevertheless it was a jolly good story.

i was dissapointed in this tale.the story builds you up, keep you guessing and drops you like a ton of bricks at the end. it is a good thing this is a free book.
it tells of a young girl working for a woman and her son in a big house.the woman and her son are not what we call "human". some of the story line is ridiculous

I have to admit it took me a page or two to figure out that the author had chosen to define the characters by their roles and not their names. I did for a short moment think that he had perhaps had a slight language black hole. The story is about Waif, who is indeed a waif with a birthmark and she lives in Great House with Young Master (you get it now, right...and can maybe understand why I had to read the first two pages twice). Is she the solution to an ancient family curse? I won't go into too many details, it would give away the story. Suffice to say the writer does actually explain his different approach at the end of the story. I enjoyed it and the whole "no the" issue made me chuckle, as I was saying it out loud when I read, which I am sure is a sign of total language OCD. Very entertaining