A dark YA fantasy debut perfect for fans of House of Hollow and Small Favors. In the wake of her father’s death, a teen girl discovers a side of her family she didn’t know existed, and is pulled into a dark—and ancient—bargain she is next in line to fulfill.
Kit’s father always told her he had no family, but his sudden death revealed the truth. Now Kit has a grandmother she never knew she had—Agatha Starling—and an invitation to visit her father’s hometown, Rosemont.
And Rosemont is picture perfect: the famed eternal roses bloom all year, downtown is straight out of the 1950s . . . there’s even a cute guy to show Kit around.
The longer Kit’s there, though, the stranger it all feels. The Starling family is revered, but there’s something off about how the Starling women seem to be at the center of the all the town’s important history. And as welcoming as the locals are, Kit can’t shake the feeling that they’re hiding something from her.
Agatha is so happy to finally meet her only granddaughter, and the town is truly charming, but Kit can’t help wondering, if everything is so great in Rosemont, why did her father leave? And why does it seem like he never wanted her to find it?
My Thoughts
This dark but uber-compelling blend of fantasy and horror with a touch of fairy tale will keep readers glued to their seats, devouring this in one sitting.
The base story is somewhat familiar – parent keeps their family secret from child, child is key to some age-old ceremonial activity, child kicks butt and breaks curse. In the hands of a less skilled writer, this could be second-rate drivel, but Linsmeier is no second-rate hack. Her plot is well-constructed and very clever, and her narrative prose is lovely and horrifying at the same time. I look forward to more from this debut author.
Fans of fantasy-horror will adore this.
Publication Date: June 27, 2023 Published By: Random House Children’s, Delacorte Press Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy
Larry Marx is CEO of The Children’s Agenda, a Rochester-based organization advocating for policy change and evidence-based solutions for the health, education, and success of children. Larry has been an organizer and leader of political campaigns and social change organizations for the past 30 years, working in more than one hundred issue and election campaigns in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and New York. Larry co-chaired the board of the national Partnership for America’s Children for three years, a network of 56 state and local children’s advocacy organizations in 44 states. He is an appointee to the Governor’s Early Childhood Advisory Council and the New York State Child Care Availability Task Force, and serves on the Executive Committee of ROC the Future and the Steering Committee of the Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative. Larry received the awards named after the founders of Action for a Better Community and the Rochester chapter of the National Council for Jewish Women in 2016. He is married to Deb Rosen and has two college-age daughters, Natalie and Naomi. They make their home in the Neighborhood of the Arts in Rochester.
What character or author would be the librarian in your personal literary paradise?
It would have to be Tintin, the intrepid reporter from the Hergé series of what we now call graphic novels. The literary paradise he would bring me would be based on truth-telling, unfaltering moral purpose, travels to faraway lands, known and unknown, and breathtaking adventures with thrilling escapes. Plus, there would be lifelong friendships along the way with Chang, Captain Haddock, and my ever-faithful dog Snowy.
How do you treat the books you read? Do you make notes in them? Dog-ear the pages? Keep every page (and the spine!) pristine?
If they’re nonfiction, then quite likely I’ll write marginalia. It used to be a point of pride to mark those books up, kind of like an animal scent-marking its turf – Larry was here! I think of it as places , connections and thoughts I might want to return to, especially for work. But fiction, good fiction, is indelible in itself, so I like to leave those books untouched and immaculate.
Do you ever judge a book by its cover? What attracts you to a cover?
Wow, definitely. If I don’t know the author, then an intriguing title is my first and foremost point of attraction, followed by cool cover art.
What was the first book you read by yourself as a child?
Truly can’t remember. I’m old.
Is there a book you’ve read that you wish you didn’t?
I majored in political science and philosophy, and several Germans – especially Heidegger’s Being and Time – plunged me into both quandaries and depression. Also Stephen King’s It. I was so profoundly angry and disgusted at the turn the book takes at the end, I almost threw it away. It completely ruined for me what had been a great read over a long time.
What is the funniest book you ever read?
Jim Harrison had a series of novellas about a character named Brown Dog, an indigenous man from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula . His bawdy antics are wonderfully LOL and enlivening.
Have you ever decided NOT to do something based on what you read in a book?
Yes, continue reading philosophy.
What book marks a major milestone in your life?
A glorious summer when I lived in D.C. and read War and Peace. I bought a used hardback, 50th anniversary translation, that included a bookmark/booklet comprised of maps, character lists, and timelines that I referred to constantly. I was fully immersed for the summer summer in a deep, moving experience. And I think of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Wendy Mogel’s The Blessings of a Skinned Knee. . . The chapters of my life are definitely book-marked.
Do you have a favorite picture book? What and why?
In addition to everything Tintin, there’s a gorgeous graphic novel called Habibi, by Craig Thompson, which we read in my book club. The images are Islamic-influenced, exquisite black-and-white pen lines swirling on the page – a real feast for the eye.
What was the last book you read that challenged your world view?
I read Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation as a 19-year-old and became close to being a lifelong vegetarian ever since. White Fragility – mirrors are hard on the eye (of the beholder). More recently, Ruth Ozecki’s The Book of Emptiness and Form and Grace Cho’s Tastes Like War both changed my understanding of the “madness” of people who hear voices. The Book of Emptiness and Form also has beautiful scenes of a library as a place of sanctuary, belonging and sanity, where books whisper rather than shout.
Have you ever read a book by your favorite author that you did not enjoy?
Yes, I devoured Jim Harrison’s works for many years. The language in his poetry and his nonfiction writing about food and wine stayed fresh, but the themes and language of his late novels got repetitively stale, unfortunately.
Is there an author or a book that you think is highly overrated? Why?
Sorry, Henry James is booooring.
What book would you recommend to heal a broken heart?
Pretty much anything ever written by the magnificent Louise Erdrich: Love Medicine, LaRose. . . I cannot read her without getting choked up, my heart cracking open, like Leonard Cohen’s “Ring the Bells:”
Ring the bells that still can ring, Forget your perfect offering There is a crack, a crack in everything That’s how the light gets in
Is there a book you’re embarrassed to have read? What and why?
No longer being a teenager, I shall pass on this question.
What is a favorite quote from a book?
Is this cheating? Richard Wagamese, an Ojibwe author and journalist, had this to say on a wall I spotted in July at Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario:
“All that we are is story. From the moment we are born to the time we continue on our spirit journey, we are involved in the creation of the story of our time here. It is what we arrive with. It is all we leave behind. We are not the things we accumulate. We are not the things we deem important. We are story. All of us. What comes to matter then is the creation of the best possible story we can while we’re here: you, me, us, together. When we can do that and we take the time to share those stories with each other, we get bigger inside, we see each other, we recognize our kinship – we change the world, one story at a time.”
If you had a Narnia closet, what literary world would it lead to and what’s the first thing you would do there?
Probably David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. And I would immediately scream, run and hide for my life from the evil lurking there.
You’re on a dating app and all your matches are literary characters. Who do you select?
Can I please date authors? Padma Lakshmi, Louise Erdrich, Jesmyn Ward, Elena Ferrante (blind date), Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Nora Ephron, Jennifer Egan. . .
Where do you get your book recommendations?
I like to follow certain authors, so once I find a book I really like, I’ll start running after them until I either catch up or I’m out of breath. I’m part of a book club, too, and those become my reading priorities. And then I also like the New York Times book review, and whatever flotsam gets kicked up to my phone by the various algorithms tracking my every online move.
If you enjoyed this Reader Profile and are interested in doing one yourself, please contact me at patricia.uttaro (at) libraryweb.org.
Deadly Depths by John F Dobbyn July 24 – August 18, 2023 Virtual Book Tour
The death by bizarre means of his mentor, Professor Barrington Holmes, draws Mathew Shane into the quest of five archeologists, known to each other as “The Monkey’s Paws,” for an obscure object of unprecedented historic and financial value. The suspected murders of others of the Monkey’s Paws follow their pursuit of five clues found in a packet of five ancient parchments. Shane’s commitment to disprove the police theory of suicide by Professor Holmes carries him to the steamy bayous of New Orleans, the backstreets of Montreal, the sunken wreck of a pirate vessel off Barbados, and the city of Maroon descendants of escaped enslaved people in Jamaica. By weaving a thread including the Aztec kingdom before the Spanish conquest of Mexico through the African Ashanti beliefs of Jamaican Maroons and finally to the adventures of Captain Henry Morgan during the Golden Era of Piracy, Shane reaches a conclusion he could never have anticipated.
My Thoughts
As a longtime fan and reader of action-adventure fiction, I don’t know how I’ve missed out on John F. Dobbyn’s work! Deadly Depths is one wild ride, beginning in Boston and ending in a forbidding Jamaican jungle.
All the elements of a pulse-pounding adventure are here – the charismatic protagonist, the mysterious powerful benefactor, the stoic but powerful wingman, the treacherous partners, and above all the fabulous treasure at the end of the quest.
A well-constructed plot, a vivid and engaging narrative (there’s an absolute nightmare of an underwater scene that had me at the edge of my seat!), and a non-stop pace make this one a winner for any reader looking to escape into an adventure for a few hours.
Praise for Deadly Depths:
“Deadly Depths gives readers characters they care about and gets hearts pumping as the mystery and adventure unfold!” ~ Janet Hutchings, Editor, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
“Deadly Depths is an exciting mystery novel that asks who has the right to seek and exploit lost treasures.” ~ Foreword Reviews
Following graduation from Boston Latin School and Harvard College with a major in Latin and Linguistics, three years on active duty as fighter intercept director in the United States Air Force, graduation from Boston College Law School, three years of practice in civil and criminal trial work, and graduation from Harvard Law School with a Master of Laws degree, I began a career as a Professor of Law at Villanova Law School. Twenty-five years ago I began writing mystery/thriller fiction. I have so far had twenty-five short stories published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery magazine, and six mystery thriller novels, the Michael Knight/Lex Devlin series, published by Oceanview Publishing. The second novel, Frame Up, was selected as Foreword Review’s Book of the Year.
In the Shadow of the Bull by Eleanor Kuhns July 17 – August 11, 2023 Virtual Book Tour
Ancient Crete, 1450 BC. In a world of Goddess worship, sacred snakes and sacrifice, human jealousy, resentment, and betrayal still run wild . . .
When her sister Arge drops to the floor in convulsions and dies at her wedding, fifteen-year-old Martis, a young poet and bull leaper in training, is certain she was murdered. The prime suspect is the groom, Saurus, from the Greek mainland, but when Arge’s shade visits Martis, swearing Saurus is not the murderer, Martis vows to uncover the truth.
As Martis begins asking questions, she discovers that while Arge may have had no secrets, many of the people around her certainly do.
My Thoughts
Years of reading mystery novels have taught me one thing – people are the same, no matter the time period. Strong emotions such as love, hatred, and jealousy have caused humans to behave in terrible ways for centuries, and Eleanor Kuhns skillfully demonstrates her understanding of the human psyche in this well-constructed novel.
The characters here are especially well drawn. Martis is a headstrong young woman who chafes at the restrictions preventing her from following her dream of bull leaping, even though she is good at it. She doesn’t understand her sister’s eagerness to marry, and also does not appreciate her other sister’s rough treatment.
Imagine Martis’ heartbreak when Arge dies on her wedding day, then imagine her confusion as it becomes clear the death was not a natural one. The route to a solution is not an easy one for Martis or for the former bridegroom, Saurus, who is the prime suspect. Martis perseveres, leading up to an even greater emotional reveal of the murderer.
Kuhns delivers a readable, engrossing mystery full of vivid narrative depicting Ancient Crete, along with a set of memorable characters who will stay with you even after you turn the final page. I’ve not read Kuhns’ work before, but will be looking for it now.
Praise for In the Shadow of the Bull:
“This complex, character-driven mystery is loaded with fascinating historical details” ~ Kirkus Reviews
Book Details:
Genre: Historical Mystery Published by: Severn House Publication Date: July 2023 Number of Pages: 224 ISBN: 9781448310869 (ISBN10: 1448310865) Series: An Ancient Crete Mystery (#1) Book Links:Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | Severn House
Eleanor Kuhns is the 2011 winner of the Minotaur/Mystery Writers of America first mystery prize for A Simple Murder. That was the first in the Will Rees series. She went on to write ten more. In the Shadow of the Bull is the first in the Ancient Crete Mystery series.
This summer, staff in the Monroe County (NY) LIbrary System are doing their own summer reading program. The image above visualizes the 311 titles read by staff in the first 2 weeks of the program!
Library staff put much time and effort into creating fun and engaging summer reading activities for all ages, so we thought it would be a fun change to put our staff in the position of winning some great prizes for their reading efforts.
In addition to this being a fun activity, it also serves to model library staff as Readers, with a capital R. This is such an important thing in our communities.
Cambridge University recently published a massive new study that once again demonstrates the power that reading has on success in life. This study also revealed that people, especially teens, who read often also enjoy better mental health.
Not only does reading make you smarter, it makes you healthier! And what better place to access millions of books than your public library. If you’re in the Rochester NY area, check out all the things happening in the Monroe County Library System this summer at https://libraryweb.org
Acquacotta by Emiko Davis Publication Date: March 2023
Discover the cuisine of a secret part of southernmost Tuscany, known as La Costa D’Argento — the silver coast, in the second edition of Acquacotta. In this cookbook, Tuscan-based, Australian-born writer and photographer Emiko Davies has compiled and adapted her Italian family’s best-loved recipes from Capalbio, Monte Argentario, Giglio Island and inland to the hot springs of Saturnia and the ancient Pitigliano.
These are hearty, sometimes complicated recipes that rely heavily on fresh ingredients and plenty of time to cook. The book is divided into sections based on where the main ingredient is sourced, and includes delicious things like Crostini di Polenta con i Funghi (mushrooms on top of crispy polenta planks), Acquacotta Maremmana (a casserole rich with summer vegetables, bread and eggs), and Sformato di Cipolloti (a spring onion gratin). While the recipes are blended with some useful cooking tips and lovely photos, this is not a book for the beginning cook. This experienced cook found some new favorites!
The Herb Gardening Handbook by Andrew Perry Publication Date: March 2023
The Herb Gardening Handbook gives you the know-how of what herbs to buy, what to plant them with, how to use them and even how to make herbs look good, no matter the space available. Beginning with a simple guide of how to get started and the best growing conditions for herbs, The Herb Gardening Handbook is a stylish guide to 12 herb projects that will suit everything from indoor window ledges to balconies and gardens. From the cocktail herb garden, which focuses on the botanicals that will make summer cocktails and drinks all the more fragrant to the Pizza Pantry Garden where readers will grow everything needed to create delicious pizza toppings.
This handy little book takes some of the mystery out of growing herbs by grouping types of plants together based on how you want to use them. Looking for herbs to make your pizzas tastier or wondering how to infuse herbs into your adult beverages? All that is here and more. Includes tips and advice on how to grow in multiple places – pots vs. in-ground, how much sun, how much water, when to prune and so on. It’s all here in one handy guide.
One-Pot Healthy by Sabrina Fauda-Role Publication Date: March 2023
Bringing together classic dishes and fresh recipe ideas, One-Pot Healthy teaches you how to cook 80 delicious and hearty meals in just one pot. From weeknight essentials to gatherings and celebrations, there’s something for every occasion. Start your day with a Tomato and Herb Omelette, try your hand at a speedy Chicken and Butternut Broth, ready in just 15 minutes and cook up a rather impressive Eggplant and Fig Casserole. Filled with inspiration for simple, healthy and delicious meals, One-Pot Healthy contains a wide variety of ingenious recipes, perfect for any night of the week.
This is a downright beautiful book! I love a cookbook that includes luscious, full-color, glossy photos of the finished dishes, and this book more than delivers on that front. You eat with your eyes, right? The photos in this book will encourage you to try new recipes using ingredients you might not otherwise pick up. The cooking techniques used here, from knife cuts to the whole “one-pot” method are suitable for all levels of cooks. Give this one a try if you’re looking for new ideas.
All books published by Hardie Grant Books Thanks to the Publisher for review copies
Ann Cleeves—New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows—returns with The Raging Storm, the extraordinary third installment in the Matthew Venn series.
Fierce winds, dark secrets, deadly intentions.
When Jem Rosco—sailor, adventurer, and legend—blows into town in the middle of an autumn gale, the residents of Greystone, Devon, are delighted to have a celebrity in their midst. But just as abruptly as he arrived, Rosco disappears again, and soon his lifeless body is discovered in a dinghy, anchored off Scully Cove, a place with legends of its own.
This is an uncomfortable case for Detective Inspector Matthew Venn. Greystone is a place he visited as a child, a community he parted ways with. Superstition and rumor mix with fact as another body is found, and Venn finds his judgment clouded.
As the winds howl, and Venn and his team investigate, he realizes that no one, including himself, is safe from Scully Cove’s storm of dark secrets.
My Thoughts
Cleeves just keeps getting better with every story she writes. This new entry in the Matthew Venn series reveals a bit more information about Matthew’s upbringing in The Brethren, but really focuses on long simmering feuds, wrongs done in the past and the long, long memories of people in a small, isolated town.
The atmosphere here is one of the darkest I recall from a Cleeves book (although there are a couple in the Shetland series that get pretty dark), with the setting in a small Devon coastal village everyone describes as “bleak.” Cleeves excels at writing descriptive narrative so lush you can feel the rain on your face and the wind in your hair, and she certainly delivers that kind of experience here.
True to form, the characters here are memorable, from the charismatic Jem to devoted mother Mary, her protective father Alan, and the ultra-manipulative woman who fools them all.
This can be read as a stand-alone, but it will make you want to go back and read the others in the Venn series. While a well-constructed mystery in Cleeves’ incomparable style, be prepared for feeling less than cheerful while reading.
“A friend of mine once joked that the work of Ann Cleeves is the closest the crime fiction genre comes to evoking ASMR—the euphoric, pleasant, spine-tingling sensation that’s all the rage on YouTube.” —The New York Times
Publication Date: September 5, 2023 Published By: St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy
Maren is an outreach librarian in Rochester, NY who still takes Levar Burton’s word for it, even though you don’t have to. Apart from her first love, books, Maren also enjoys trivia, board games, and walks in the woods with her family.
What are you reading right now?
Lightfall, which is a middle grade fantasy graphic novel series, Samantha Irby’s latest book of essays, Quietly Hostile, and I’m finally getting round to reading Middlemarch by George Eliot! These days I always have a few books going at once.
The desert island question – What 5 books would you have to have with you if you were stranded on a desert island and why?
I don’t know if this is a cheat, but first of all: a really big poetry anthology– Norton or FSG. Then, I’d go for a couple of tomes that I’ve always wanted to read but have never managed to make the time for: Don Quixote and Moby Dick. Finally, the old familiar favorites, Grimm’s Fairy Tales and Parable of the Sowerby Octavia Butler.
Who is your go-to author when someone asks you for a recommendation?
I guess I don’t have a go-to. I believe in a book for every reader and a reader for every book, so I rarely make recommendations without knowing something first about the person’s preferences. If I was really pressed to recommend something I’ve enjoyed, I suppose I would say Justin Cronin is an author I love that I think has a wide appeal.
Describe your favorite place to read.
Lounge chair in the backyard with my dog in the grass next to me and my kids playing outside…down the block at the neighbor’s house!
Book or movie? Is there a movie that you think was better than the book?
I would say that the book is usually better because they are such vastly different mediums and it takes incredible nuance to transfer a great book into a great movie. But even when it is done very well (Lord of the Rings or Shawshank Redemption come to mind), I usually still prefer the book because I am a book person!
Share a favorite quote from a book you’ve read. Why is it meaningful to you?
Well, I think it’s in Dirk Gently’s Holisitic Detective Agencythat Douglas Adams wrote “Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable, let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.” I often get bogged down by the can’ts and the shouldn’ts, and that quote reminds me to forget about all of that and just go for it. Plus, it makes me laugh.
Is there a book you feel is highly overrated?
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Sure, there are a couple of interesting twists and turns, but besides that most of the book is dry descriptions of this guy eating sandwiches, reviewing his notes, and going for walks.
Are there any books that marked milestones in your life?
Maybe not a specific book, but I think of my late teens (end of high school…starting college) as my “Kerouac years.”
Are you a “finisher” or do stop reading a book if you’re not connecting with it?
You know, I used to finish a book no matter what but there’s just too many other books that I want to read to waste my time on something that I’m not getting anything out of.
Do you have a favorite book that you received as a gift?
When my first child was born, we were given many books, including a complete collection of the Frog and Toad stories by Arnold Lobel. I suppose technically the gift wasn’t given to me, but believe me I definitely received it. Now I frequently give the same book as a gift to new parents and their babies.
Do you judge a book by its cover?
I try not to dismiss a book because of its ugly cover, but a couple of my favorite books I never would have read if I hadn’t said “Hey, what’s that? It looks cool!”
What was your favorite book when you were a child?
The Ramona books by Beverly Cleary, especially Ramona the Pest. I’ve never encountered a literary character that I relate to more.
What book made you laugh out loud? What book made you cry?
I cry every time I read the end of Turtles All the Way Down by John Green, which is not the John Green book everybody expects you to cry over, and yet…
If you are interested in doing a Reader Profile, please reach out to me at patricia.uttaro (a) libraryweb.org.
1929: Miss Clara Vale is a woman ahead of her time. Rather than attending Oxford to bag an eligible Duke (as her mother, Lady Vale, so desperately hoped), she threw herself into a degree in chemistry, with aspirations to become a scientist in her own right.
But the world isn’t ready for Clara. Unable to land a job in science because she’s a woman, she is stuck behind the desk at a dingy London library, until her estranged Uncle dies suddenly, leaving her his private detective agency, and laboratory, in his will.
Clara couldn’t become a detective, could she?
The decision is made for her when one of her uncle’s old clients comes to her for help with a case surrounding the local picture house and invites Clara to see the latest show, before they discuss the details. During the film, a fire suddenly engulfs the picture house, with tragic consequences.
It seems at first an accident, but Clara soon begins to question if it was in fact a carefully orchestrated murder. She’s suddenly in the middle of a deadly mystery and will discover her scientific skills make her a sleuth to be reckoned with… Can she catch the killer before they strike again?
The first in a brand-new, glittering Golden Age cozy mystery series. Fans of Verity Bright, Helena Dixon and TE Kinsey will be hooked from the very first page to the final breathtaking finale.
My Thoughts
Readers looking for a new admirable heroine in a lighthearted cozy mystery series will throughly enjoy Clara Vale. The 1920s setting means Clara battles all sorts of misogyny, classism, and chauvinism as she attempts to make her own way in life as a scientist turned detective. Clara is a bit stiff at first but quickly settles in to a newfound life in Newcastle. She’s made of stern stuff and doesn’t really have any qualms about taking over her Uncle Bob’s enquiry business.
It’s nice to start a new series and watch the main character quickly grow into her role. Clara make friends (and enemies) and does so while solving several mysteries at once. I’ll be recommending this to fans of the Miss Fisher series and fans of cozy historical mysteries.
Publication Date: August 29, 2023 Published By: Embla Books Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy
This standalone adventure set in the world of the New York Times bestselling Jackaby series brims with humor, heart, and—of course—a hefty dose of supernatural mayhem.
Abigail Rook never intended to be the mortal bridge between the human and supernatural world. But now, the power of the Sight–and all the chaos that comes with seeing the essential truth of everything, every human, fairy, werewolf, enchanted slip of paper, and municipal building, at all times–is hers alone. With this overwhelming new gift, she should be able to solve crimes and help New Fiddleham, New England find calm in its supernatural chaos.
The only problem? She has no idea what she’s doing.
And New Fiddleham isn’t waiting for Abigail to be ready. Local witches and other magical beings are going missing, as tensions between human and supernatural residents curdle into a hatred that could tear the city apart. Abigail’s fiance, Charlie, works alongside her to unravel the magical disappearances, but as a shapeshifter, he’s under threat as well. Then Abigail’s parents appear, ready to take her back to England and marry her off to someone she’s never met. Abigail has no choice but to follow her Sight, her instincts, and any clues she can find to track a culprit who is trying destroy everything she holds dear.
My Thoughts
This newest entry into the world of Ritter’s popular Jackaby series picks up with Abigail Rook getting used to being the Seer of New Fiddleham. She struggles to accept this momentous change to her life, complicated by guilt at having inherited the Seer ability from Jackaby, who is also trying to adapt to life without the sight.
Complicated is a good word for what’s going on here. As usual, it’s a good story and includes the colorful characters fans have come to love. There’s a lot going on, and lots to keep straight, which is challenging if it’s been awhile since you read the last book. It’s wonderful to see an entire book devoted to Abigail, who has been a character of strength and interest since her first appearance, right off the boat and wearing a coatful of pixies.
Even so, fans will adore this and will be looking for more from this author.
Publication Date: August 22, 2023 Published By: Algonquin Young Readers Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy
It's All About the Book 