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Summary on the back: Just as the rains come after ten long, dry years, a young wizard, Wayland North, appears, to whisk Sydelle Mirabil away from her desert village. North needs an assistant, and Sydelle is eager to see the country - and to join him on his quest to stop the war that surely will destroy her home. But North has secrets - about himself, about why he chose Sydelle, about his real reasons for the journey. What does he want from her? And why does North's sworn enemy seem fascinated by Sydelle himself?
My thoughts: *incoherent flailing* I absolutely adored this book. It has been years since I've so completely relished reading a book to the point that I put off watching tv to finish it, and it's the first book I can think of that I genuinely wanted to be longer, even as perfect as the ending was. Someone described it as "chocolate" and I can't think of a better description - warm, delicious, and 100% addictive.
The characters are fabulous. It made my day to find no trace of the usual, eye-rolling description of the male character's "gorgeous looks", and even more refreshingly, North is described as a man, rather than a boy (I'm so weary of fourteen year old protagonists). Even Sydelle, despite being a teenager and having the occasionally - albeit understandable - pouting moments, never felt like the annoying teenage YA heroine. Yes, she's "special" but it's never treated the way typical YA novels handle it, but rather equal parts curse and gift that she doesn't fully understand and can't really control. I also looove North's name - it's fairytale-ish and just delightfully offbeat, and his entire description - his unkempt clothing, drunkenness, and disgruntled attitude - is such a perfectly, wonderfully fairytale real wizard, like the old German books I read as a kid, that I kept grinning ear to ear through the pages. I liked how his personality shifted over the book as more layers and backstory were revealed, and we saw him through Sydelle's eyes. It was also nice to have a chronically ill (cursed, but still) protagonist.
I really enjoyed the love story aspect of the plot. Enemies to allies/friends/lovers is my favorite relationship trope and this book had so much of it, followed by the sweetest, most trope free romance I've had the pleasure of coming across in a very long time. There were several moments that had me tearing up, others giggling, and the ending was just lovely. But more than anything, I loved how the romance wasn't the main focus of the story, and how their relationship grew slowly, as opposed to instant love. I would have liked a lot more world-building - so much of the hedge witches and how magic worked at all was left largely unexplained - but what there was (magic out of the air! with cloaks! and colors!) was fascinating and completely creative.
Overall, I had zero true complaints about Brightly Woven. It was a complete gem, and I can only hope to discover more books like it in the future.
feeling: 
happy
happyjukebox: "Billy Bayou"-Jim Reeves