Category: Review

Honey Moon #2: Scary Little Christmas – Sofi Benitez

Illustrations – Becky Minor

Honey Moon just wants to be able to celebrate Christmas like they do in normal towns, but nothing seems to be going right this Christmas. First Honey is cast as a shepherd in the annual Christmas pageant when she’s certain she would be perfectly cast in the role of Mary. Then she discovers that the pageant is in jeopardy this year because evil mayor Kligore is organising a Haunted Holiday Festival instead. Honey also stumbles upon a town mystery and is determined to solve it with the help of her friends.

Throughout the story Honey reminds us to stand up for what we believe in, even when it seems like we’re alone in our convictions. Honey is quite bossy with her friends in this book, with her assertion that she is the leader, and it was nice to see her flaws along with her good intentions. She also reintroduced me to the word numbskull so I should be thanking her for that. I haven’t heard that word used in years and am now determined to find a way to use it in everyday conversation.

The illustrations were so much fun and a great blend of Halloween and Christmas. I particularly loved that the scenes depicted at the beginning of each chapter were inside snow globes. My favourite snow globe scene was the snowman in a black cape with fangs. If I ever see snow I’m sure this will be the inspiration for my first snowman.

One of my pet peeves showed up frequently in this book. The detail in the illustrations didn’t always correspond to the description in the text. This happens a lot in children’s books and I’m not sure whose role attention to detail is, but it really frustrates me. Each instance is only minor but if the text specifically describes how something looks, then I expect that something in the illustration to match its description. Some of the examples in this book include:

  • Mrs Keys is wearing heavy boots. In the illustration she’s not wearing boots.
  • Miss Fortissimo was wearing a necklace that was so long it reached past her belly button. I didn’t see a necklace in the illustration.
  • Honey and her friends have fries and milkshakes. In the illustration there are milkshakes but no fries.
  • Honey is sitting on a bench with her little brother. Her little brother is not in the illustration.
  • The spots on a turtle shell are all different colours. In the illustration the turtle is only green. On the front cover the turtle is green with white segments on its shell.

While overall I enjoyed reading Dog Daze more than this book (although I am quite partial to the first book in a series), I was still entertained and it made me laugh. I liked the story and the development of the mystery, and I love Honey’s determination and courage. I’m definitely interested in reading more Honey Moon books.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Rabbit Publishers and Diamond Book Distributors for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Honey Moon has had it with the scary stuff, at least for Christmas. She wants Sleepy Hollow to celebrate her favourite holiday like normal people. Honey and her friends, Becky, Claire and Isabela, have one chance to take the holiday back, but it means solving a decade old mystery and ringing some bells. YIKES!

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Harry Moon: Harry’s Christmas Carol – Mark Andrew Poe

Don’t be afraid of the dark.

It’s Christmas time in Sleepy Hollow, or ‘Spooky Town’ as evil mayor Maximus Kligore turned the town into when it became a Halloween tourist attraction year round. Now, I’m all for year round Halloween festivities (Bah humbug!) but Harry Moon is on a mission to light up the pervading darkness of the town.

Harry’s magic teacher and friend, Samson, has been attacked by the mayor and his evil hordes’ Fouling Curse, and it’s up to Harry and his Good Mischief Team to battle evil toys and the powers of darkness to save Samson – along with the town’s Christmas spirit. Along the way Harry makes a new friend, learning not to judge someone by their outward appearance.

I loved the inventiveness of the anti-Christmas carols that the evil mayor pumps through the town’s airwaves, and replacing chapter with verse was a simple yet appropriate nod to the carols, anti and otherwise, that featured in the book. My favourite descriptions related to the colours of Lady Dra Dra’s wigs, which at one point was puke-lemon.

The illustrations were a great blend of Christmas and Halloween, with the images at the beginning of each chapter foreshadowing an event to come. I find the expressions on the character’s faces in the illustrations for this series are particularly wonderful, especially the evil grin on the mayor’s face in this book.

I’m not quite sure why Jesus couldn’t just be called Jesus. It is a Christmas book after all and while He is referred to as the Great Magician, in keeping with the magical aspects throughout the series, it irked me. There are sections where the Bible is either quoted or paraphrased during the book but at no time are these attributed as such. I did think that the Mr B.L. Zebub character’s name was clever though.

I expects children will love reading about the different varieties of jellybeans described – blue Penguin Poop, purple Reindeer Poop, and for when the purple inevitably sells out there’s the standby red and green swirled Elf Poop! The Halloween fans will also appreciate the town’s festive decorations – green dragon tails forming garlands and light posts wrapped with white bandages mixed with fake blood to imitate candy canes.

Favourite sentence:

“For the Great Magician and his deep magic can best be seen in the selfless love between one to another.”

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Diamond Book Distributors for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

While everyone is singing cheerful Christmas carols, Harry Moon and the Good Mischief Team march to a different song – Don’t be Afraid of the Dark. With their swords of light, the team battles against the Fouling Curse threatening Harry’s magic teacher, Samson Dupree, and the Sleepy Hollow Magic Shoppe. As evil armies of toys rise up, Harry must leave the sword behind to find a more powerful means to take down the darkness threatening Sleepy Hollow’s entire world. 

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Sketched – E.M. Townsend

I loved the concept of Sketched. You’ve got a police sketch artist who has an ooky spooky second sight connection that allows her to go into trancelike states where she’s able to draw photograph quality portraits of people who (with the exception of her mother) she’s never seen before – while she’s blacked out.

After a face and location are revealed to her via her supernatural connection, Piper winds up face to face with Dixon’s very own serial killer, the Dixon Demon, and survives (barely). She then goes into hiding eight hours away from her hometown.

Fast forward five years and Piper’s ability is stronger than ever. The Dixon Demon is back in the business of making townsfolk disappear and Piper is drawn back to her hometown to face her own demons as well as the elusive Demon.

I found the story intriguing and entertaining. I really enjoyed the atmosphere the author created. There’s a dark, creepy foreboding that follows you through the book. I wanted to continue reading to learn more about the killer’s motivation and how the various threads were going to be tied together. However, I had some problems with the characters in this book, mostly due to my lack of connection to any of them.

When someone dies during the book, my response was, ‘oh, okay’ and that wasn’t okay with me. Usually I’d be outraged or ecstatic or would at least have some sort of feeling about it, especially when they were an important person in another character’s life, but I didn’t.

The serial killer was unusual in that their victimology changed during the course of the book. While their motivation remains fairly consistent their crime scenes reflected a mix of organised and disorganised elements. I enjoyed learning their backstory and connecting the dots to discover how this person became so freaking messed up.

They are a huge fan of the baddie monologue and take mother issues to a whole new level. Take my word for it: this mother could probably teach Norma Bates a thing or two. I really liked that there were three characters with various mother issues in this book, all responding with their own versions of lashing out and engaging in self-destructive behaviour.

I never really understood the role of Piper’s psychiatrist. While he’s still advising Piper (mostly to actually eat a meal and not drown herself), his role appears to be more Boy Friday than anything else. He’s the chef, the executive assistant, the friend, the babysitter.

I wondered why one alcoholic got the DT’s at a certain point when the alcoholic that was with them at the time didn’t. It’s also noted that a body is too decomposed to be identified using dental records. My forensic knowledge is amateur at best but I thought teeth were one of the best identifiers when a body is decomposed.

I found some of the sentence structure awkward. One portion of a sentence, as an example, read, “their flashlights the only light source of light.” (76%) Although to be fair I read an advanced copy so it’s likely that sentences like this were remedied prior to the book’s release.

Favourite sentence:

“What if she finally surfaced only to find herself still submerged?”

Had I connected to the characters this book would have been a solid ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I’m interested in reading more books by this author.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, S. Prescott Thrillers and BookBuzz.net for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Fledgling police sketch artist Piper Cooke has always been different. 

Gifted with second sight, but cursed with a life of tragedy, she has survived the feral streets of Dixon and has triumphed over her troubled upbringing. Piper faces her biggest challenge yet, however, when her visions compel her to disobey police orders and send her right into the wicked grasp of a madman. 

Her life should’ve ended back in the blood soaked suburban basement, but it didn’t. Instead, the brutal trauma that should’ve been the end of her only makes her unique abilities stronger. 

Years after her escape, a series of hideous visions force Piper out of hiding and back into the city that almost destroyed her years ago. Plagued by premonitions of doom, she finds herself compelled to track down Dixon’s most twisted serial killer yet. 

Follow Piper through a horrifically unsettling labyrinth of family secrets, corruption and the sickening workings of humanity’s darkest minds. 

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Swirl #1: Pumpkin Spice Secrets – Hillary Homzie

A book with a name that includes a type of muffin and frappé, both of which feature in the book? Sold!

This is one of those cliché tween first crush books that follows the usual script:

  • Shy girl meets first crush / dreamy boy of her dreams.
  • Shy girl plans on gushing about dreamy to her outgoing friend.
  • Outgoing friend gets in first and tells shy girl about dreamy new crush.
  • Turns out dreamy 1 and dreamy 2 are actually the same boy. What’s a shy girl to do?!
  • Shy girl pretends not to be crushing on dreamy while internally cringing every time outgoing girl openly crushes.
  • Dreamy starts spending more time with shy girl and develops his own crush. Aargh! Panic stations!
  • Outgoing girl finds out she’s not the only girl in the world and some boys will actually like someone other than her. Oh, no! The sky’s falling!
  • Friend break up scene …
  • Drama, drama, drama.
  • Friends make up. Aww!
  • Shy girl and dreamy are free to live happily ever after – until one of them develops a new crush.

The moral of the story: If you can communicate openly and honestly you will never secure a leading role in a romance novel.

Snarky, anti-romance, I’m going to die alone surrounded by my cats sarcasm aside? This was actually quite a sweet story. Sure, I wanted to strangle shy girl and outgoing girl, and tell them to wake up to themselves and actually talk, but I accidentally enjoyed reading this one.

I loved that dreamy wasn’t a pretentious pretty boy. I liked that shy girl had an older sister who came through with some sisterly love and had a surprisingly rebellious attitude beneath her studious exterior. There’s a café in this book so major props for that. The school sounded like one I’d like to attend. I loved the birthday locker idea. The girls play soccer.

My favourite thing about this book is that the tweens actually acted their age, and even a tad younger sometimes. It bugs me when the 12 year olds are really 20 year old characters in disguise. The tweens in this book spoke and acted like kids. They didn’t sound like walking thesauruses. They got cranky and grounded. They planned sleepovers. There weren’t any drugs or tween sex or even any swearing that I can remember. It was just a really sweet book.

And did I mention the pumpkin spice muffins and pumpkin spice frappés with whipped cream, caramel swirls and sprinkles?? Yum! 😋 I definitely need to find more books with food items included in the title.

Favourite sentence:

“Mom doesn’t get angry very often, but when she does, she spews like a shaken-up soda can.”

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Sky Pony Press and Xpresso Book Tours for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Just as Maddie picks up her favorite pumpkin spice drink from the coffee shop counter, she spills it all over the cute guy standing behind her! Luckily, her embarrassment evaporates into a crush when she starts chatting with him – his name is Jacob, and he’s just starting in her grade at her middle school. 

But before Maddie can tell her best friend Jana about him at lunch the next day, Jana announces her huge new crush – on the same guy! Maddie doesn’t want to cause trouble, so she keeps her feelings hidden. Jana will get over her crush soon, right? 

Add major school stress to Maddie’s secret, and it’s a recipe for disaster. Can she keep her cool and work things out with both Jacob and Jana before it all turns into a total mess?

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The Invincibles #3: The Beast of Bramble Woods – Caryl Hart

Illustrations – Sarah Warburton

In The Beast of Bramble Woods our Invincibles, Freddie Spoon and Nell, are working their Pester Power to try to join Nell’s brother and his two nerdy friends, William and Joe, on an overnight camping adventure.

Nell’s brother Lucas is your typical teenage boy, with some sort of fungus growing out of a coffee cup on his bedroom floor. Lucas spends a fair potion of his time asleep with headphones attached to his head during the day and has a game controller attached to his hands at 3am. In his most likely smelly room he has a doona cover I need because it has sharks all over it!

Nell’s best friend, Freddie Spoon, shows her a newspaper clipping with a photograph of a Mysterious Beast in their neighbourhood. Because they’re going to be wildlife experts when they grow up Freddie Spoon and Nell try to work out what type of animal the Mysterious Beast could be.

Naturally the five kids wind up allowed to join the boys camping – but only until 8:30pm! Once the five start hanging out they tell ghost 👻 stories around the campfire 🔥 which leads to Freddie Spoon showing the older boys the newspaper article about the Mysterious Beast. The night turns into one of dares and scares before we finally uncover the mystery of the Mysterious Beast.

I really enjoy this sweet series. I accidentally read this book first and then followed it up with books 1 and 2, so this is a reread for me now that I know how the story starts. I love the friendship between Nell and Freddie Spoon and also the relationship between Nell and Lucas. As the older brother Lucas is naturally annoyed by his little sister at times but he looks out for her as well. These books have a bit of mystery, a bit of adventure, some humour and a whole pile of feel good loveliness. I smile through these books and feel better about the world when I finish reading each story.

Once again I loved the illustrations by Sarah Warburton. Each book in the series has its own colour and this book is various shades of orange. Keep an eye out for sneak peeks of the beast throughout the book! My favourite illustration is the goofy looking snake in the sewer pipe on its way to bite some unsuspecting toilet user on the bum.

I really hope there’s going to be a book 4!

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Nell’s big brother Lucas and his nerdy friends are camping out in the garden. They’ve got a fire and marshmallows and everything! Nell and Freddie Spoon are desperate to join in but they have to go to bed at eight-thirty. Eight-thirty! So they come up with a plan to sneak back out and play some tricks … They steal the marshmallows, and put a frog in a sleeping bag, but their best prank is to pretend to be The Beast of Bramble Woods! But Lucas catches them and they run off into the woods so they don’t get told off. And then they get lost. And then they hear the noises. But it’s just Lucas, isn’t it? 

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Clifford Celebrates Hanukkah – Norman Bridwell

Clifford and Emily Elizabeth celebrate the eighth day of Hanukkah with Emily Elizabeth’s classmate Melissa and her family. They learn about Hanukkah traditions and eat a dinner that sounds so yummy before going to the town square to see the giant menorah. Clifford even has the opportunity to save Hanukkah when the menorah’s lights go out. This would be a lovely book to use to introduce kidlets to the traditions of Hanukkah.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen Clifford look any more adorable than he does in this book. When he first meets Melissa’s family he’s sitting wagging his tail with this goofy cute smile and waving at them. There’s no such thing as a bad Clifford book.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Clifford and Emily Elizabeth are celebrating their first Hanukkah. They love hearing the story of Hanukkah, eating “latkes” (fried potato pancakes) and “sufganiyot” (fried jelly donuts), and playing dreidel. 

After dinner, Clifford and Emily Elizabeth take a trip into town to see the giant menorah. But when they get there, they discover that one light is broken. It’s too late in the evening to call a handyman, but maybe Clifford is big enough to help save Hanukkah!

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Clifford the Small Red Puppy – Norman Bridwell

Reading this one for the second time because, well, it’s Clifford’s origin story! The first time around I read a library book. This time around it is one of Mum’s many new hide-and-seek Clifford books. I hide them for her and she finds them. It’s so much fun hiding presents for people at random times. I highly suggest you try it!

Anyway, Clifford. While there are a few sad parts in this book, ultimately it’s a story of the power of love between a child and their pet. Clifford may have been the runt of his litter but with Emily Elizabeth’s love, this little red puppy became the big red dog readers adore. Aww! 💕

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

How did Clifford become such a big red dog? Read and find out how a simple wish from Emily Elizabeth led to Clifford’s amazing growth.

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Ruby Wishfingers #5: Funny Money – Deborah Kelly

Illustrations – Leigh Hedstrom

This is my second favourite Ruby Wishfingers book. I loved the originality of the first one and then enjoyed 2 to 4 but they didn’t seem to have the charm of the first. In book 5 it felt like I was rediscovering the whimsy of the first.

Ruby wants to go to a concert with Todd but neither of them have enough money saved. She plans on doing some household chores with Todd to earn the rest of the money they need. Suddenly Ruby begins to find shiny new coins wherever she goes. She knows it’s not her magic making them appear and it’s not Jellybean’s magic either. So where are the coins coming from?

Throughout the series I’ve enjoyed watching Ruby’s father flat out denying the existence of magic, even though it’s been a big part of his family’s life for generations. I appreciated the humourous results of his disbelief in this book. As good ol’ Ruby helps to save the day in each book I keep wondering what she’d wish for if she wasn’t so busy using up all of her wishes to help everyone else.

Once again Leigh Hedstrom’s illustrations are perfect for this series. I particularly liked the contemptuous look on cranky cat Jupiter’s face in his illustration.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

It must be Ruby’s lucky day! She keeps finding coins everywhere. But there is something funny about this money. Why is it so bright, shiny and new looking? And where on earth is it coming from?

When Ruby’s new wishes appear much earlier than expected, she wonders if someone else in the Wishfingers’ household might be developing magical powers of their own. But who?

You can bet your bottom dollar this will be a magical adventure to remember.

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The Good Samaritan – John Marrs

There’s a visceral quality to John Marrs’ writing that I love! I read the blurb and immediately judged Laura. I mean, there you are, at your wits end and you call End of the Line. A woman named Laura picks up the phone and her voice is soft and soothing. She listens carefully and without judgement to all of your problems. You feel like finally someone understands what you’re going through so you call a second time, hoping to speak to Laura again. Over time she earns your trust and she goes above and beyond to help you … right over a cliff.

How can you feel anything but disdain for someone who actively encourages people to die by suicide? Read The Good Samaritan and you’ll discover that there are many contradictory and confusing emotions you can attach to her character. I found I developed an empathy I wasn’t expecting to feel for this villain/victim. What shocked me was that I found I could understand where she was coming from and why her actions made perfect sense to her.

I really appreciate when an author can take something I see as a moral no-brainer and adds enough grey that I can no longer accurately distinguish whether something is more black or white. The complexities of Laura’s character had me rooting for her, against my better judgement. I wanted everything to turn out okay for her, despite feeling from the get go she was destined to crash and burn. (Or was she?!) Even after I learned more about her from the perspective of other characters I still liked her.

Accompanying Laura on this journey are her husband, two daughters and son. Running parallel to Laura’s story is that of Ryan, who is grieving the loss of his pregnant wife and desperately searching for answers. We also meet a number of helpline angels who are doing their best to support callers through their most vulnerable times. I would love to tell you all about the story but telling you just one more thing would cause an avalanche of explanations of why that is important, who it relates to and why, and how that’s then going to spiral into something unexpected and extraordinary.

While the themes in this novel are dark, the storytelling is brilliant! I got caught up in the intricacies of the major players’ characters, motivations and actions. With so many pieces of half-truths and hints of information to come being dangled in front of me throughout the book I wondered how the author could possibly wrap it all up in time. Not only were my questions answered, they were satisfying and mostly unexpected. When you have so many people involved in morally questionable actions at best and reprehensible ones at worst, how do you determine what outcome is fitting for them?

The exploration of the events that help mould us into the people we become and our responsibility in determining whether we use the potentially devastating events in our lives to propel us forward or to get stuck in the mire was fascinating. The interplay between nature and nurture is an area of interest for me. The half a psychologist in me (the half that doesn’t pay) got sucked in by the character studies of Laura and Ryan, and gave me so much to chew on I expect I’ll be thinking about them for a while to come.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the opportunity to read this book. I have to read everything that John Marrs ever writes!

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

She’s a friendly voice on the phone. But can you trust her?

The people who call End of the Line need hope. They need reassurance that life is worth living. But some are unlucky enough to get through to Laura. Laura doesn’t want them to hope. She wants them to die.

Laura hasn’t had it easy: she’s survived sickness and a difficult marriage only to find herself heading for forty, unsettled and angry. She doesn’t love talking to people worse off than she is. She craves it.

But now someone’s on to her – Ryan, whose world falls apart when his pregnant wife ends her life, hand in hand with a stranger. Who was this man, and why did they choose to die together?

The sinister truth is within Ryan’s grasp, but he has no idea of the desperate lengths Laura will go to …

Because the best thing about being a Good Samaritan is that you can get away with murder.

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Dork Diaries #12: Tales from a Not-So-Secret Crush Catastrophe – Rachel Renée Russell

Once upon a time, Dork Diaries was a lovely series about adorkable Nikki, her BFF’s Chloe and Zoey, her crush Brandon, and her arch-nemesis Mackenzie. With misunderstandings between friends, deep and meaningfuls in the janitor’s closet at school and an abundance of embarrassing moments, I found this series relatable, appropriate for its target audience and really cute.

Recently Nikki’s had her own reality show and in this book she has the hugest problem! She has to choose between going on a national tour with her band as an opening act or go to Paris, plus two boys have crushes on her. Girl, the plebs that don’t live in your ivory tower wish we had your problems.

I’m not sure if it’s just me but it seems like the boys in this series are becoming prettier than the girls. But that’s an aside because I basically adore the sweetness of the illustrations in this series.

Yes, I’m whingeing about this instalment. Yes, I’m going to read the next one. I just want it to get back to its roots, being a positive influence for adorkable girls trying to find their way in a super awkward time of their lives.

Favourite sentence:

“Why is my life such a giant bucket of puke?!!”

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

In Nikki Maxwell’s newest diary, it’s the countdown to the end of the school year, and Nikki’s juggling some big questions about how she’ll spend her summer. She’s also facing an unexpected crush catastrophe – there’s a new kid interested in Nikki, but the last thing she wants to do is accidentally hurt Brandon! It all comes down to a big decision Nikki has to make, and drama like she’s never faced before!

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