Book Reviews: June 2019

Wildspark by Vashti Hardy.
 Scholastic £6.99
The author of ‘Brightstorm’ once again shows off her inventive and exciting gift for storytelling. ‘Wildspark’ is an incredible tale of love, loss, life, death, science, technology and friendship.  A year after the loss of her older brother, farm-girl Prue Haywood's family is still grief-shattered. She learns of a new, incredible technology discovered in the city of Medlock, where a secretive guild of inventors has developed a way to capture spirits of the dead in animal-like machines, bringing them back to life. Could the "Ghost Guild" hold the key to bringing her brother back? Prue seizes their offer to join as an apprentice. But to find her brother, she needs to get the ghost machines to remember the people they used to be….
This is an astonishingly ingenious story, Vashti’s world-building is superb, and her characters are vivid and complex – Prue is a refreshingly plucky and determined heroine, with a genius for engineering, and the ‘Personifate’ ghost animal characters are lovable and engaging – I really fell for the stoat! Perfect for children aged 8-11. Tune in to the worlds of Vashti Hardy now! Vashti will be leading a writing workshop during our Booklover’s Week in mid-June.

Evie and the Animals by Matt Haig. Illustrated by Emily Gravett.
Canongate £12.99
Following the news that Matt Haig’s best-selling ‘A Boy Called Christmas’ is to be turned into a Christmas block-buster movie, there’s now more excitement – a new chapter book for younger readers, ‘Evie and the Animals’!
It’s the story of eleven-year-old Evie, who has an unusual talent – she can talk to animals! Although her dad has always warned her not to use her special power, her secret is out after she frees the school rabbit and has an encounter with a lion at the zoo. Suddenly a dangerous enemy is on her trail. Evie must develop her powers in time to outwit the sinister Mortimer J Mortimer, save the animals under his spell, free her Granny and dad, and discover the truth about her past!
A short, sweet and exciting adventure, written with Matt Haig’s characteristic light touch, humour and tenderness and brought to life with stunning illustrations by Emily Gravett. A perfect chapter book to read aloud to 6-7 year olds, or for 7+ readers to read alone.

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley.
Harper Collins £12.99
A fiendish puzzle of a murder mystery set in a remote Scottish hunting lodge which brings all the appeal of an Agatha Christie-style house-party whodunit to a thoroughly modern thriller.
Set intensely over a 48-hour period, the novel follows a group of ex-Oxbridge friends, now privileged thirty-somethings, as they gather for a New Year reunion. As the snow outside mounts, so do the tensions and undercurrents of old rivalries, jealousies and resentments. After a blizzard, a body is found, and the group are trapped, snowed in – with a murderer in their midst! So far, so Agatha Christie… but what sets this story apart is the thoroughly modern structure, vividly desolate setting and deft characterisation. Weaving multiple narrators and flitting the timeline back and forth with consummate skill, Foley excels at creating red herrings and psychological motivations, and an interesting narrative twist keeps the identity of the victim hidden right up till the end. Hugely enjoyable, well-crafted and atmospheric! Although her previous 3 novels have been historical fiction, Lucy Foley is clearly a new Queen of Crime!
Lucy will be talking about ‘The Hunting Party’ on Monday June 17th at the Gluck Studio, do come along and meet her!

The Crossway by Guy Stagg
Macmillan £9.99
Recovering from a breakdown, Guy Stagg rises one morning and walks from London to Canterbury. He arrives exhausted and bleeding, but finds that the act of putting one foot in front of the other has made him feel a little more free. Brought up Christian but now with no faith, Stagg is nonetheless comforted by the idea of Christian history and ritual. In the depths of winter at the dawn of 2013, he sets off from Canterbury to Jerusalem along the Via Francigena, over the Alps in winter, into mass protests in Istanbul, around war in Syria, and into countless strangers’ homes. No grand religious revelation awaits him in Jerusalem, but a quieter discovery that the ideals of sacrifice, self-surrender, so seductive to the young and miserable, are not what pilgrimage is about; ‘in the course of my journey I was shown how sacrifice could mean something smaller: the habit of kindness, the discipline of humility, or the steady practice of patience.’
Fascinating. Guy Stagg will be talking at the Gluck Studio on Tuesday 18 June at 7.30. Tickets from The Steyning Bookshop.