You can tell that this is VES's early writing, because for the first 200 pages it lacks any of the ambience and metaphor that her better, more recent writing has. The story itself is redundant, and not in a fun, lyrical, fairytale way, or a cyclical, But This Time The Protagonist Has Learned Something, kind of way. The story just trudges: Onto the moor, and back to bed, onto the moor, and back to bed, onto the moor, and back to bed. Certain characters (Bo, Tomas, Magda, Dreska) are built up, but there's no real payoff, they just sort of fizzle into the background. Lexi's links to her father and to nature are never quite driven home (why doesn't she get a magical girl upgrade into witch by the finale?! How is SHE not the new Near Witch!).

That said, after the halfway point, the writing did start to pick up considerably. And the short story insert, The Ash-Born Boy, should have absolutely been included as a proper part of the book. This should have been a dual PoV book: Lexi, a witch of the land, and Cole/William, a witch of the sky, brought together in this tempestuous place where storms and marsh consume what once was, and all that remains are stories... There is a theme throughout of "imprints", what gets left behind is incomplete but gives us a picture, a piece of the story: Lexi tracking footprints, her mother kneading her grief into her bread dough, bruises and scars Lexi and Will both obtained from abusers, the moor itself scarred with burns or collapsing from rot... There was something too in trying to link the importance of stories, how they change with retellings, and the cycle of nature... But I felt like I was looking at a spread of Tarot cards without a manual to consult to read them, having to search too hard for the meaning the author wanted me to find.

I would 1,000% love to see VES revisit this book and rerelease it, revised, as a special edition or something. I think she can get deeper and tighter than this (nobody make a crass joke). I also DESPERATELY want a crossover!!! The Ash-Born Boy was MADE to be the prequel to Shades of Darkness:
"He led her through a vine-wrapped arch into his mother's pride and joy, the Great House gardens. They were not groomed, but wild, tangled and free as they might be on the moors."
"Will pulled free and stormed back to the steps, clutching his pendant as the mood coiled around him, inside him. 'Untangle,' he begged as he climbed the steps. 'Untangle. Untangle. Untangle.' But as he reached the top, he felt the power choking him. He felt helpless, hopeless. He wanted to scream. He was sick of smothering the magic and himself. He wanted to let go, not as he had in the garden, or in his room, but really, truly let go. Was there no way to be free?"
"At first he resisted, but then he realized, with a hollow kind of grief, that there was no reason to hold back now. He could have power or people, but never both, and now the people were gone [...] He walked until he was no longer the heir of Dale, or the callous prince, or William Hart. He walked until he was simply a shadow..."
.... TELL ME THAT'S NOT THE ORIGIN STORY OF OSARON?!?! Will can even teleport, and he slashes his arm to focus his control - how is he not the first Antari!?!?! Tell me the realm of pure magic gone rampant, the home of Black London, isn't born from THIS, from a place where elements caroused with humans until one stormy little boy destroyed it all! Tell me Holland spreading greenery back into the realm isn't like recognizing like, magic welcoming its own home, the land of elements awakening again after being rotted by Cole/Will/Osaron for so long. Tell me Cole/Will/Osaron gave in to magic, let the chaos rule him, and was found and saved by Holland, the icy boy with all the self-control. It. FITS. So. PERFECTLY!!!

Come on, VES! I dare you. This book as it is is fine, but it has sooooo much potential. I know VES could pull it off, she's got the skills now.