Home alone with her young children during a blizzard, a mother tucks her son back into bed in the middle of the night. Then she hears a noise – old houses are always making some kind of noise. But this sound is disturbingly familiar: it’s the tread of footsteps, unusually heavy and slow, coming up the stairs…
In that split second, she has three choices.
Should she hide? Should she run? Or should she fight?
MY REVIEW
The reader is immediately drawn in to the horror of a mother, in her house with her two children, in the middle of a blizzard. She wakes in the night. Hears an intruder coming up the stairs. The panic she feels is palpable. How can she protect her children?
What a terrifying journey of panic, claustrophobia, questioning your own sanity, and the worrying fact this mother couldn’t rely on the police.
The mother begins to question her sanity when the police speak to her. It appears they don’t believe her. Just an hysterical woman who recently lost her husband to a freak accident. Was the intruder real? She keeps going over the events, getting more confused in her mind with what actually happened.
Written in a way we feel we are inside the mother’s head, feeling her feelings and encouraging her forward. You have this! You are a strong woman!
I liked the fact the characters real names were not used. It added something to the cold and tense atmosphere. No cosy first names. The mother gave them nicknames such as the Corner (the intruder) and the boyish officer (young policeman).
I really didn’t know where this one would go and I was worried the ending would be a let down after the tense, adrenaline fuelled read but thankfully no. It was an excellent ending.
Many thanks to Viking Books for my advance copy. Due out Feb 2024.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tracy Sierra was born and raised in the Colorado mountains. She currently lives in New England in an antique colonial-era home complete with its own secret room. When not writing, she works as an attorney and spends time with her husband, two children, and flock of chickens. Nightwatching is her debut novel.
The festive season is fast approaching and the Little Duck Pond Café menu has been given a mouth-watering sprinkling of December magic. Jaz is hoping for the perfect festive season with little daughter Emma. But her feelings for next-door neighbour, Milo, are getting in the way. With his old love back on the scene, is she really prepared to risk her heart and make it the best Christmas ever?
Another gorgeous addition to the Little Duck Pond series of novellas.
I’m feeling all the Christmas feels after this one.
There is the boy (well, man) next door romance bubbling at the beginning, but can Jaz finally let herself get involved in another relationship? Has she waited too long? Milo has waited for her but now his beautiful blonde ex uni friend has appeared on the scene.
There is a homeless young man who heroically saves two young girls. Will he accept help?
And there is of course the Christmas Wonderland charity fundraiser to organise.
Grab those opportunities with both hands is the lesson I’ve taken away from this wonderful novella, and of course spend as much time as possible with friends and loved ones.
This is one of my favourite series and I’m always so excited to return to Sunnybrook for the next book!
Huge thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for my spot on the blog tour.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rosie has been scribbling stories ever since she was little. Back then, they were rip-roaring adventure tales with a young heroine in perilous danger of falling off a cliff or being tied up by ‘the baddies’. Thankfully, Rosie has moved on somewhat, and now much prefers to write romantic comedies that melt your heart and make you smile, with really not much perilous danger involved at all – unless you count the heroine losing her heart in love.
Rosie’s Little Duck Pond Cafe series of novellas is centred around life in a village cafe and each book can be read as a stand-alone story.
Look out for THE SUNSHINE SISTERS – a heart-warming and thoroughly enchanting trilogy of books in the Little Duck Pond Café series, out early in 2024!
The War is over, but for petty criminal Charlie his darkest days are only just beginning.
Charlie Briggs is never off-duty, even when a botched job means he’s forced to lay low in a sleepy Hampshire town for the holiday season. Always searching for his next unwitting victim, or a shiny trinket he can pilfer, he can’t believe his luck when he happens upon a rare book so valuable it will set him up for life. All he needs to do is sit tight until Boxing Day. But there’s a desperate story that bleeds beyond the pages; something far more dangerous than London’s mobsters is lurking in the shadows.
Could the book be cursed? Why is he haunted by the horrors of war? Can he put things right before he’s suffocated by his own greed?
MY REVIEW
At just under 100 pages, this is a novella to read in one sitting. Which is good as you won’t be able to put it down.
Set just after the end of the Great War. Charlie Briggs, who didn’t serve in the war, is a cunning small time thief. Lying low in a town away from London where he is a wanted man. Dressed as a gentleman, with stolen accessories, he manages to get into a bookshop looking for a book he can steal to sell on. He doesn’t expect to find a rare and very valuable book right in front of his nose. And he definitely doesn’t expect the book to be haunted.
We follow Charlie as he guards the book with his life, whilst trying to evade a ghostly figure. He only has to get through the next few days until his acquaintance can pick him up.
Is he imagining the war scenes he finds himself in the middle of? And what about the choking fog which appears from nowhere? And the poppies growing where they shouldn’t at this time of year?
Such a spooky read! Brilliantly written as I was absorbed in the story from the first page.
Thank you to the author for my copy to read and review on the blog tour.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Victoria Williamson grew up in Glasgow, Scotland, and has worked as an educator in a number of different countries, including as an English teacher in China, a secondary science teacher in Cameroon, and a teacher trainer in Malawi.
As well as degrees in Physics and Mandarin Chinese, she has completed a Masters degree in Special Needs in Education. In the UK she works as a primary school special needs teacher, working with children with a range of additional support needs including Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Down Syndrome, physical disabilities and behavioural problems.
She is currently working as a full time writer of Middle Grade and YA contemporary fiction, science fiction and fantasy, with a focus on creating diverse characters reflecting the many cultural backgrounds and special needs of the children she has worked with, and building inclusive worlds where all children can see a reflection of themselves in heroic roles.
Victoria’s experiences teaching young children in a school with many families seeking asylum inspired her debut novel, The Fox Girl and the White Gazelle, an uplifting tale of redemption and unlikely friendship between Glaswegian bully Caylin and Syrian refugee Reema.
Twenty percent of her author royalties for The Fox Girl and the White Gazelle are donated to the Scottish Refugee Council.
You can find out more about Victoria’s books, school visits and upcoming events on her website: http://www.strangelymagical.com
In the glittering and ruthlessly competitive world of opera, Maria Callas is known simply as la divina: the divine one. With her glorious voice, instinctive flair for the dramatic and striking beauty, she’s the toast of the grandest opera houses in the world. Yet her fame has been hard won: raised in Nazi-occupied Greece by a mother who mercilessly exploited her, Maria learned early in life how to protect herself.
When she meets the fabulously rich shipping magnate, Aristotle Onassis, her isolation melts away. For the first time in her life, she believes she’s found a man who sees the woman rather than the legendary soprano. Desperately in love, Onassis introduces her to a life of unbelievable luxury, mixing with celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
And then, suddenly, it’s over. The international press announce that Onassis will marry the most famous woman in the world, former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, leaving Maria to pick up the pieces.
In this remarkable novel, Daisy Goodwin brings to life a woman whose extraordinary talent, unremitting drive and natural chic made her a legend. But it was only in confronting the heartbreak of losing the man she loved that Maria Callas found her true voice.
MY REVIEW
I have just reluctantly emerged from the glamorous world of Maria Callas. I didn’t want this book to end!
Beautifully written, Daisy has captured the essence of La Divina – with her highs and lows; in her private life as well as her singing career. The constant worry that she was spending one of a finite number of ‘coins’ every time she performed, and her voice would not last forever. What would she do when it all ended? Well, she wanted nothing more than to settle down to a simple life with a loving husband and children.
She was a vulnerable woman, constantly looking for reassurance and love. She did not have it as a child as her mother favoured her older sister. Her husband wanted her for her talent and her earnings. Aristotle Onassis, the love of her life, perhaps loved her in his own way, but she was only ever going to be his mistress. The story ends after he marries Jackie Kennedy, for status rather than love, but still wants Maria in his life.
Daisy takes us on a trip through the world’s best opera houses, and we mingle with celebrities such as Princess Grace and Prince Rainier, Winston Churchill and Marilyn Monroe.
I am so glad Maria had her maid Bruna by her side all times, who looked after and understood her, and provided the mothering she so needed.
This book will have a place on my forever shelf as I know I will read it again. I am so grateful to Head of Zeus for sending me a proof. I have preordered the book – preorders are so important for authors – so I will have the set 💛
Can’t recommend it highly enough.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR – in her own words
When I was eighteen I went to Cambridge University to study history. MY first assignment was Queen Victoria and the media. I went to the library to consult her Diaries. She wrote sixty two million words in her life time and as I pulled out the first leather bound volume I felt overwhelmed by its size and weight. But then it fell open at the entry for 3rd Nov 1839, ” I saw me dearest Albert who was all wet in his white cashmere breeches with nothing on underneath.” As I laughed out loud, the other readers looked at me in disapproval. Queen Victoria, I decided then, was not the boot faced old bag with a bonnet I had imagined, but a woman after my own heart.
All my novels have been set in the Victorian era: The American Heiress is about a dollar princess called Cora Cash who marriesan English duke; The Fortune Hunter is the story of Sisi, the beautiful Austrian Empress who came to England to hunt – in the novel Sisi meets Victoria. I enjoyed writing this encounter so much – Victoria”s voice came so easily to me, that I decided that my next next novel would be about the young Victoria. But as I started writing it, I thought it would make a great tv drama, which is how I ended up writing the PBS Masterpiece series Victoria, as well as my novel Victoria, a novel of a young Queen.
When I am not immersed in the nineteenth century, I live in London with three dogs, two daughters and a husband.
Unwrap a story of festive song, good cheer and – just maybe – a sprinkling of love …
Schoolteacher Sophie Lawson has fled to the Cotswold countryside after a tragic break-up and is throwing herself into dating and organising Cranswell’s annual Christmas concert.
The festive fun is marred by the arrival of a handsome but surly musical director, tricky pupils and concert preparations falling into disarray. Disaster strikes, but the show must go on. Will the concert bring Christmas harmony to Cranswell and will Sophie end the year on a high note?
MY REVIEW
A cosy Christmas romance to snuggle up with. Just add hot chocolate and a blanket.
I just love a good romance, especially when it is themed around Christmas, and this author is definitely on my list to look out for in the future.
Our main characters are Sophie and Liam who have recently had a disastrous first date, but seem destined to keep meeting. Liam turns up at her choir, where they are practising for a charity concert, as the temporary musical director. Then she finds out Liam’s troubled daughter is in her year 6 class.
Sophie has had more than her share of heartbreak in her life, as has Liam, and we gradually learn their stories and hope they can move forward with their lives.
If only all teachers were as considerate as Sophie, school would be a much better place!
I was obviously rooting for a happy ever after and for both of them to overcome their difficult pasts. I was also hoping Sophie’s mum would develop a heart as she is just horrible. Putting Sophie down at every opportunity. No wonder the poor girl wanted to leave her parents behind when she moved away for her job.
I enjoyed the ‘enemies to friends to enemies to lovers’ storyline, but I have to say my favourite character was Lulu, one of the minor characters. I would love to read a story of her life as a star at MGM when she was younger!
Thank you Libby at Allison & Busby for my gorgeous proof copy of the book and my spot on the blog tour.
BLOG TOUR HOSTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Helen is a writer, editor and English teacher. Her first attempt at novel writing was shortlisted for the Penguin Michael Joseph Christmas Love Story Competition and highly commended in the I AM In Print Romance Competition. When she’s not writing, Helen can be found editing, singing and dancing with her local operatic society, or running around with her daughter and partner at their home in Oxfordshire.
The former chosen one and their band of unlikely allies must find a new path in the sequel to The Art of Prophecy, an epic fantasy ode to martial arts and magic.
A hero once believed to be the chosen one must find a new path with the help of a band of unlikely allies in the sequel to The Art of Prophecy, an epic fantasy ode to martial arts and magic from the #1 New York Times bestselling author Wesley Chu.
Once there was a prophecy that a chosen one would rise to defeat the Eternal Khan, an immortal god-king. But the prophecy was wrong.
Now Jian, the former chosen hero, is just an ordinary young man trying to find his own way. But he may yet have an extraordinary destiny, because he joins forces with Taishi, his grumpy grandmaster, who instructs him in the ways of her family’s powerful war art. Jian still has a long way to go before he can become her heir, so she recruits a band of elderly grandmasters who come out of retirement to whip him into shape and help with this one last job.
And there are others who are also seeking their own destiny, like Qisami, an assassin on a secret mission to protect a powerful noblewoman from her enemies. But as Qisami goes undercover to complete her mission, she takes on a new identity that gives her something she never had before: friendship, found family, and new purpose.
Sali also thought her fate was laid before her. She was supposed to be looking for the next Eternal Khan and now finds her clan exiled from everything she’s ever known. As she leads the survivors in search of a new home, Sali discovers that she’s something she never thought she could be: a leader and a revolutionary.
Because sometimes destiny is grander than any prophecy can foresee. And the greatest destiny of all is the one you choose for yourself.
MY REVIEW
This is an absolute must read for fantasy and martial arts lovers. I hadn’t read The Art of Prophecy prior to this, this being the second in the series, but I will without a shadow of a doubt be reading it soon. I’ll be searching out one of those gorgeous hardbacks!
It’s a wonderful huge chunk of a book to get your teeth into and absolutely absorb yourself in this world. Be prepared to put a weekend aside to fully enjoy it, it was around a 17 hour read for me on my kindle. There are a lot of characters in this book and the author has written a helpful who’s who at the front of the book to refer back to.
The main character we follow is teenage orphaned Jian as he is trained in war arts by his ‘aunt’ Ling Tashi, a master of wind whispering. Jian’s destiny is to slay the immortal God King, the Eternal Khan. If he ever shows up. And it is beginning to look like he might not so Jian needs to find another purpose in life. Tiani calls retired masters of their respective lineages to help educate Jian. Unfortunately many of them are dead, retired or want nothing to do with her. One “secretly hates you with a passion of a thousand spears”. Which is also one of my favourite lines from the book! So there are five of them. But with some substantial war arts skill. Jian is also the most wanted person in the Enlightened States. So he lives under the radar in Cloud Pillars with Tashi and Zofi, another orphan taken in by Tashi. Until one day he unfortunately stumbles into a situation and kills around 10 bandits who are holding up a caravan and gets his face on wanted posters. Although it doesn’t really look like him. Apart from the one eyebrow. All he wanted was his aunt’s mail they were about to steal. Jian reminds me a lot of Aang the Avatar especially as he is practicing wind whispering.
Another of the main characters in this story is Maza Qisami, a highly effective assassin for hire who works in a cell of shadow kills. She is set up and captured during one hit and forced to work for Sunri – Duchess of Caobiu; simultaneously the most admired and most hated person in the enlightened states. And her life is in danger.
A third character Sali is on a quest to find a way to sever the Khan’s spirit from her body, which is killing her.
Three amazing storylines following outstandingly well developed characters which jump off the page. Each has their own quest / destiny to chase. The humour was perfect, making the characters feel real. A talented author indeed to bring another world to life in such depth.
There are plenty of strong female characters written into the story.
Many thanks to Stephen at Black Crow PR for introducing me to the writing of Wesley Chu, who is now an auto read author for me, and for having me along on the blog tour.
BLOG TOUR HOSTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wesley Chu is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twelve published novels, including Time Salvager, The Rise of Io, and The Walking Dead: Typhoon. He won the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. His debut, The Lives of Tao, won the Young Adult Library Services Association Alex Award. Chu is an accomplished martial artist and a former member of the Screen Actors Guild. He has acted in film and television, worked as a model and stuntman, and summited Kilimanjaro. He currently resides in Los Angeles with his wife, Paula, and two boys, Hunter and River.
I’m delighted to be part of the blog tour for this immersive, hard hitting and thought provoking book. Very cleverly written and I developed a soft spot for the philosophical young Aron as soon as he was introduced into the story. I absolutely loved it.
I have included a synopsis for the book below, then there is a Q & A section with Ami about her inspiration for Boundary Road and a teaser for her next book.
SYNOPSIS
A story of colliding lives, beguiling opportunities, and reckless illusions. A compelling blend of comedy and tragedy. Love, desire, fear, and dreams on a London bus: we’re on the thirteen, heading for Boundary Road. People get on and off leaving something of themselves behind, but two of the passengers have a past they can’t escape. People can’t stop talking. A giddy cocktail of monologues, dialogues, memories and gleeful anticipation. It’s amazing what people will say to total strangers. Suddenly the unsayable just trips off the tongue and there’s so much feeling behind it; hours of thought, sprinkled with melancholy or sharp blades of aggression. While some just accept what life offers, others react with dangerous determination. A man haunted by his past and the many pasts of his family, but in love with the present; all that’s greeting his senses right now. He’s charming but he’s got a secret waiting to catch up with him. A woman stifled by lack of affection but determined to do what’s right. A man obsessed with architecture and in love with a painting. For most, it’s a liberating opportunity to exchange confidences with a stranger, but for two passengers this journey will be unexpectedly life changing.
Author Q & A:
What inspired Boundary Road?
I think it was a confluence of disparate events or observations that came together to inspire Boundary Road.
Firstly and perhaps most interestingly, I saw “Aron” –meaning I saw an extremely unusual looking young man with striking blue eyes walking down Baker Street and was immediately taken by something about him, his confidence, his energy, yes, those eyes – he seemed so alive and so vital. I watched him get into the number 13 bus and I guess somewhere in that fleeting moment, a seed was sown.
Another trigger I remember vividly is when I was visiting my friend Nora in Maida Vale. I received a text message from my friend Aron and when I told him where I was he very casually pointed out the ARON:NORA thing. I’d say that was probably the genesis moment for the entire novel. It immediately gave me a structure, a sense for the architecture of the book. Sometimes that’s all it takes to spark an idea – an observation, a coincidence, an incongruity, a puzzle that floats around in your head, and doesn’t go away and you feel compelled to do something about it. Write a book or whatever.
Time is definitely a factor, meaning the times we are living in or through. I wrote Boundary Road entirely during covid and the multiple conversations that take place on the bus are probably a projection in opposition to the experience of the unnatural isolation we were all a part of. If you trace the development of the novel over time, you can see how it tends to be a reflection of, or a reaction to, the time it is set in, and my response to that moment in time was to produce a polyphonous novel. George Orwell wrote in his wonderfully funny Why I write essay that a lot of novels are written out of some kind of desire to fix things or right some kind of perceived wrong. I guess that’s what I was doing – all totally subconscious of course.
Finally and most seriously, I’d say Boundary Road is a work of art, but if you take away the abstraction, it is ultimately about knife crime. It takes a simple google search to get an idea of how dire the stats are. It’s honestly so depressing to see how many young lives are over before they even begin. I guess I was fed up of constantly reading about this on the news or watching it on TV, how normalised this violence has become in the mainstream media. So, I wanted to sort of grapple with it even just for myself and the way I grapple with things is to write fiction. I wrote Boundary Road not because I had any grand notions that my book will change anything, but because of the hope that if I did an okay job with it, it might just spark conversation and even that is something because there is nothing more dangerous than apathy. You will notice that the novel “ends in the middle.” This was a creative decision about the shape of the book that I made pretty early on. I guess you can think of it as a tiny gesture of resistance to closure. Philosophically speaking, the story cannot end until the unbidden violence underpinning it also ends.
What are you writing next?
I’m working on a psychological thriller about a woman whose story is drip-fed to the reader in 19 sessions with her psychotherapist. There’s a seriously twisted twist in the end and when I told it to my husband, his response was “Boy, your mind is one scary place!” Which is really reassuring. Writing-wise that is. Also, it’s in the first person which I’ve never done before. It’s exciting. I mean I’ve written about two words, but still…
A COP NEEDS TO CRACK A DEADLY CASE He’s a detective hunting cold-blooded killers, but does he know more than he admits?
A MOTHER HAS TO SAVE HER DAUGHTER She’s a lawyer who must defend a murderer – but how far will she go to protect her only child?
A COUPLE WILL COMMIT THE PERFECT CRIME They have a plan – but can they trust each other with their lives?
THREE STORIES. TWO DAYS. DOES ONE SECRET CONNECT THEM ALL? THE FIRST 48 HOURS…MAY ALSO BE THEIR LAST.
MY REVIEW
Another cracking crime thriller from Simon Kernick.
We can identify three threads to this story.
Delvina, one of ‘The Vanishers’ who works with her under the thumb husband and his cousin to kidnap for ransom.
Becca. Lawyer who has got some pretty nasty criminals off in her time and now needs one of the worst to help her find her kidnapped daughter.
Fish. Policeman and criminal. Part of the team tracking down the kidnappers, but also part of the kidnapping team.
A clever twist on the standard police v criminals thriller which is fast paced and kept me wondering if or when Fish would be found out by his colleagues.
Some rather nasty characters are encountered in this one, mostly with their own agendas and all hiding something from each other whilst playing it straight.
As the story progressed as told from the three points of view, it was interesting to know what was going on in each of their minds and what they were planning.
A thoroughly engrossing thriller which I devoured.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Simon Kernick is one of Britain’s most exciting thriller writers. He arrived on the crime writing scene with his highly acclaimed debut novel The Business of Dying, the story of a corrupt cop moonlighting as a hitman.Simon’s big breakthrough came with his novel Relentlesswhich was the biggest selling thriller of 2007. His most recent crime thrillers include Siege, Ultimatum, Stay Alive and The Final Minute. He is also the author of the bestselling three-part serial thrillers Dead Man’s Gift and One By One.
Simon talks both on and off the record to members of the Counter Terrorism Command and the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, so he gets to hear first hand what actually happens in the dark and murky underbelly of UK crime.
At the launch for her latest children’s book, a member of the audience asks Lily for a strange inscription in her copy of the book. Why does this unnerve her?
Is Jack the answer to Lily’s prayers?
Later, while celebrating in a local bar, Lily, and best friend Alice, spot the same woman. Her name is Rose. Putting aside earlier unease, a new friendship between the three is formed. Rose offers to help Lily re-enter the dating scene after a bad breakup and they come across Jack, Mr Perfect on paper. Lily quickly falls for handsome Jack. Is he too good to be true?
The past is the past, or is it?
Soon after the pair start dating, bizarre things start to occur to Lily; things are moved or they go missing, and, what’s worse, her precious artwork is damaged. Who did this to her? Surely it can’t have been her new boyfriend, her new friend Rose, or her oldest friend Alice, even if they all have a motive? Perhaps Lily did this all herself. Who can she trust? Can she trust herself? Or has a ghost from Lily’s past come back to haunt her?
MY REVIEW
What a wonderfully dark psychological thriller.
I enjoyed getting to know Lily, and following her work as a children’s book illustrator as I love drawing too.
This is Lily’s story. Told over two timelines of two disastrous Christmases. And two disastrous relationships.
When she leaves her cheating ex behind in Brighton and moves to London with her best friend, she finds it hard to trust anyone until she meets Jack on a dating app. He seems to be her perfect man and they soon develop a close relationship. But we know early on something is not quite right about Jack.
There is another dark character in the story too. Rose. She edges her way into Lily and Alice’s close friendship, but can they trust her?
The tension builds and builds then what an explosion towards the end of the book! An absolutely satisfactory conclusion.
Many thanks to Rebecca Hobeck Books for my spot on the blog tour.
BLOG TOUR HOSTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
At the age of seventeen, having been told by her English Literature teacher to sit on her hands in lessons, as she spoke more eloquently with them than actual words, Hilly decided to prove her wrong. It started with a bout of terrible poetry and has finally culminated in the publication of her first novel. She is also a painter and ceramicist, and has a lady-shed in the middle of an organic fruit farm on a mountainside in southern Spain. She lives with her musician partner and two rescue dogs.
The Ice Children is an exciting, modern, magical mystery adventure inspired by classic fairy tale ‘The Snow Queen’. Gorgeous coloured endpapers, and black-and-white illustrations throughout by Penny Neville-Lee, this hardback would make a perfect Christmas gift for boys and girls of 8-12.
At the stroke of midnight on the dawn of December, five-year-old Finn Albedo is found frozen in the city park standing on a pedestal of ice. His heart is beating, he is smiling serenely, but no one can wake him.
Finn’s big sister, Bianca, suspects that the beautiful sparkling book Finn got from the library has something to do with it, but the book has vanished. Does the tall mysterious stranger who first discovered Finn know more than they will admit?
Each day, more children are found frozen and Bianca realizes she’s running out of time. Her quest to discover the truth and rescue her little brother hurls her into a fantastical winter wonderland, full of beauty and danger, where all is not as it seems.
Can Bianca save her brother and the other Ice Children before they are forever lost?
MY REVIEW
The author has very cleverly talked about climate change for younger children to grasp, woven into a mesmerising fairy tale. There is also a very strong theme of family and friends.
It reminded me of so many wonderful stories I have read as a child, and read to my own children. The Snow Queen being the obvious one but also The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Frozen and the Rainbow Magic series. All the stories children love to read.
In this beautifully written, and illustrated, fairy tale, 11 year old Bianca takes it upon herself to discover how and why her younger brother has turned into an ice statue in the park. Yet his heart is still beating. Believing a shiny book he read the night he changed is to blame, she tried telling the adults who of course don’t listen to her.
She follows a strange man with a top hat who is hanging around her brother and discovers a little of what is going on and why more and more children are turning up as ice statues. Putting herself in immense danger, she follows her brother to another world inhabited by The Snow Queen and Jack Frost.
The book may just plant a seed which will see children to go on to study climate change and help find solutions. It certainly stresses the children are the future and together they can make a change.
A beautiful book both outside and inside. I was entranced throughout, picturing the story as events unfolded. I would love to see it made into a film.
I would highly recommend this for children around 8-12 years old, as well as adults!
I’m very thankful to Srionti at Macmillan Children’s books for sending me a copy to read and review.
About the author
M. G. Leonard has made up stories ever since she was a little girl. Back then, adults called them lies or tall tales, so she didn’t think to write them down. Now, she makes up stories about beetles, birds, trains or anything that sparks her imagination. Her books have been translated into over forty languages and won many awards. She is the vice president of the insect charity Buglife, and a founding author of Authors4Oceans. She lives in England, by the sea, with her husband, two sons, a fat cat called Kasper, a dog called Nell, and a variety of exotic beetles.
Two Heads Are Better Than One 