It’s an emotional return to the Bronx for 12-year-old Kingston after a four-year absence following the loss of his father. Kingston’s mother is determined to turn the family’s failing business (a magic shop with next to no customers) into a smart café. But Kingston hasn’t forgotten that his father, a stage magician, vanished in front […]
Category: Uncategorized
Book Review: Sleepwalkers Round One
When 11 year old Ellie Dasher and her 6 year old brother Elijah inherit a house known as The Old Sleep from their grandmother, the family moves to Connecticut to take up residence. Ellie soon discovers that The Old Sleep has a reputation for being haunted. In one terrible nightmare, Elijah is dragged from Ellie’s […]
Book Review: The Missing Barbegazi
This is the story of 11 year old Tessa, seeking out the fabled barbegazi while mourning the death of her beloved grandfather, and Gawain, a barbegazi and young at a mere 154 years old, searching for his twin sister Maeg who went missing after an avalanche. Fortunately Tessa and Gawion meet up and with the […]
Book Review: The Hideaway
13 year old Billy leaves home one evening in late October, because after enduring it for five years, he cannot take another moment watching his mother bullied and abused by her controlling boyfriend. Fortunately he has found the perfect hideaway, an ivy-festooned “pillbox”, a relic from world war 2, in a nearby graveyard. How long […]
Book Review: The Hungry Ghost
Well paced plot, exciting setting, intriguing mystery and lots emotional turmoil, all skilfully woven together by the author. When her mother is unable to look after her due to illness, Freja is sent from her home in Denmark to Singapore to live with her father and his new family, 2nd wife Clementine, and their young […]
Book Review: The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy
It’s a big day for Marya Lupu’s family because sorcerers from the Council for the Magical Protection of Illyria are finally visiting Marya’s home to see if her elder brother, 13-year-old Luka, has magic. If he does, Luka will become an apprentice sorcerer destined to protect the realm of Illyria from the terrible Dread, and […]
The Last Cuentista
12-year-old Petra is devastated to say goodbye to her beloved Abuelita, but her grandmother is not one of those chosen to leave the planet for far-distant Sagan before a comet hurtling towards Earth obliterates it. Petra’s scientist parents are, however, so Petra and little brother Javier must join them on a journey expected to last […]
Book Review: The Eternal City of the Obsidian Toad
When Grand Master Thorbrand mysteriously falls ill, alchemist novices Matthew and Simon accompany Master Hobble to Prague to seek help from the Obsidian Toad, another branch of alchemists. While searching for a life-saving elixir in the Alchymic underground city, the Acropolis, they stumble on what looks a very sinister plot against the Crucibile of the […]
Cybils2021 – Some other wonderful nominations
I was a panellist (judge) in the Elementary & Middle Grade Speculative Fiction for Cybils 2021, so I had the pleasure of reading a lot of Middle Grade books over the last few months. As I write Middle Grade fantasy, this was a total joy, and I am so impressed by the range of stories, […]
Book Review: Long Lost by Jacqueline West
When eleven-year-old Fiona Crane’s family move to a little town called Lost Lake, taking Fiona away from all her friends, just so that sister Arden can be closer to the skating rink, Fiona is hurt, angry and really fed up. It seems that all that ever matters to her parents is Arden’s potential Olympic career. […]
Valinora Troy 