The Queen of Dreams by Peter Hamilton

Review by The Mole

Taggie and Jemima see a white squirrel in glasses which starts a fantasy adventure which sees them travelling across realms, across time and into deep labyrinths in a pursuit to save their father who has been kidnapped. But why kidnap him and why now?

When a story starts so early with a squirrel in glasses you know it is going to be a fantasy and a light hearted one at that. With shades of Alice in Wonderland, Narnia, Dr Who and even a  bit of Harry Potter there wouldn't appear to be anything new in this but these elements have been brought together in an original story that is fast paced, not too tense - but tense enough - and has original heroines that will charm it's target readership (9+).

While I found some aspects of the story too young for my taste (I am quite a bit outside it's target audience) I did enjoy it and appreciated the approach to violence adopted by the heroines. All too often bad guys are just left on the battlefield but here the heroines make a valid point of minimising violence so as not to become like the bad guys - a point that I appreciated.

A truly delightful story that anyone can leave their children reading - so long as it's not close to bedtime or you'll never get them to bed! And it's book one of a series with the next one out in August.

Publisher - Random House Children's
Genre - Children's 9+ fantasy 

 

The Enchantress by Michael Scott

The Fall Before The Rise
Review by The Mole

In this, the 6th and final episode in the The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series, Scott sets about the many threads started in the previous 5 books together and brings the story to the conclusion we have been waiting for. With the characters spread over two worlds and separated by more than 10,000 years there are a lot of story lines to finish.

Moving at the break neck speed of the previous 5 books in the series, the story continues as we conclude only 6 days elapsed in the life of Josh and Sophie. As for the other characters.... well to name some of them gives spoilers to readers who haven't yet read the previous 5 books, but let just say, as with any book where characters jump across time, some characters we enjoy more than 1 version of, with some of them denying knowledge of their friends from other times and others hiding their identity from characters that would otherwise recognise them - especially themselves.

This series of books has not all been brilliant. I have reviewed them all for Nayu's Reading Corner (and I summarise books 1-5 in The Warlock) and found book 3 to be a big disappointment. The reason was that the plot was very similar to book 2 and the feeling was that while the plot was moving fast then each book was going to build repetitively to the final conclusion. But then book 4 came along and the plot was nothing like books 2 & 3 and started to become as enthralling as book 1. And in the last 2 books the story became as exciting and engaging as book 1 and actually moved on. The reader of book 1 will have their own ideas of where the plot will go, as I did, and how the twins will save the world from Dr Dee, but the conclusion is far from the initial expectation - more complex and more challenging. With allies found where totally unexpected and enemies hidden in plain view. The Enchantress is a truly awesome read. If like me you started to turn cold around book 3 then start again and enjoy the conclusion - it's everything you could want.

This book is labelled as 10+ but is actually totally readable by fantasy lovers of all ages from 10+.

Genre - 10+ /Teen fantasy
Publisher - Kids At Random House

Buy The Enchantress: Book 6 (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel) from Amazon