The novel “Wishing Well” by Trevor Baxendale was published for the first time in 2007.

Nigel Carson and his friends Ben and Duncan Seddon Goode are digging a tunnel to reach a treasure. They’re discussing how to spend the money they think they can find but Carson is more interested in the power that comes from that treasure. He clutches a strange stone that speaks to him telepathically.

The Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones are walking through the woods in England in the 21st century. They find a sign indicating that Creighton Mere is a mile away when a strange guy warns them to avoid the village. The two travelers don’t follow his advice and fiund a passage from an elderly lady who lives in the area. In the village there’s an old well that is at the center of legends but behind the legends sometimes there’s an element of truth.

“Wishing Well” is part of a series of novels connected to the new “Doctor Who” series. They’re targeted to a wide audience by being linear enough to be appreciated even by very young readers but sophisticated enough to interest more mature readers.

The basic concept of “Wishing Well” is more typical of horror stories that science fiction ones, meaning that there’s an old well in a village at the center of some local legends with the discovery that there really is an evil presence at its bottom. Being “Doctor Who”, the story is developed with science fiction elements.

The setting is of a typical English village where the only attraction is this old well that according to legend hides a treasure. No one has ever found anything but three people are digging a tunnel to reach the place where they think it’s buried. One of the three is driven by a telepathic contact and is looking for a different kind of treasure.

From the beginning, I had the impression that “Wishing Well” was bringing to the extreme the style of Russell T Davies’s management of new “Doctor Who” series, with stories much more focused on the characters and their relationships that on the plot. In the first third of the novel really little happens: mostly there are characters who talk to each other with the Doctor and Martha meeting various inhabitants of the village one after another.

Generally, the novels in this series have a fast pace, instead “Wishing Well” is really slow in its first part. It’s devoted to a remarkable job of setting and especially character building. The novels related to the new “Doctor Who” series set on Earth often include other well-known characters besides the Doctor and his companion. In this novel, along with the protagonists of the show there are various inhabitants of the village of Creighton Mere, who are well developed also telling their back stories.

The pace of the story starts rising only in the second part of the novel, when the Doctor, having investigated the well, discovers what lies at its bottom and starts facing the problem. The plot is thin and the book ends on page 239 while generally the ones in this series reach around page 250.

A plot of this kind was perhaps more suited to the “Quick Reads” series, which consists of books that reach 100 pages. It’s clear that in that case Trevor Baxendale coudn’t have developed the characters but could have cut some unnecessary dialogue.

Having a plot so simple also makes it predictable in many ways. The evil presence and the way in which the Doctor confronts it aren’t exactly original. Trevor Baxendale had at his disposal some more pages to add some variation in the plot, instead that’s almost an excuse to talk about the characters.

Personally I have no problem with slow-paced stories but I prefer them to have some substance in the plot. For this reason, I found “Wishing Well” a bit boring so I think it’s a novel suitable for people who prefer stories that are very character-oriented or for “Doctor Who” fans.