Tag: Cover Lovin’

How to Train Your Dragon – Cressida Cowell

How to Train Your Dragon was first published in 2003, when I was too old to read children’s books. This twentieth anniversary edition finds me when I’m old enough to appreciate children’s books anew. I may be one of the only people on the planet who has never read How to Train Your Dragon or watched the movies or the TV series. Until now.

I was not a natural at the Heroism business. I had to work at it. This is the story of becoming a Hero the Hard Way.

I don’t know that it’s wise to call a Viking a sweetheart but that’s the first word I think of when I think of secret Dragonwatcher Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third.

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Ten and a half year old Hiccup is the son of the Chief of the Tribe of the Hairy Hooligans and the tribe is expecting big things from him. Only, Hiccup isn’t like other Vikings.

‘You can’t put Hiccup in charge, sir, he’s USELESS.’

Hiccup is hoping to prove himself useful by passing the Dragon Initiation Programme. Considering the alternative is exile, let’s cheer him on.

First, he’ll need to choose a dragon from thousands of sleeping ones, preferably without waking them all. Then he’ll need to train it. Fortunately for Hiccup, Professor Yobbish’s seminal work, How to Train Your Dragon, is included here in its entirety. That’ll help him out.

Be on the lookout for a Fiendishly Clever Plan and singing supper.

I’m most looking forward to getting to know Fishlegs better, if only because they named their dragon Horrorcow. Toothless, Hiccup’s exceptionally rare dragon, manages to steal the show.

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‘I’ve often thought that that book needs a little something extra … I can’t quite put my finger on it…’

‘WORDS,’ said Hiccup. ‘That book needs a lot more words.’

Ask and you shall receive. In this twentieth anniversary edition, more words is exactly what you get. An entire new story even!

In How to Train Your Hogfly, Hiccup needs to train a Hogfly called Hellsbells to prevent a BLOOD FEUD. Hellsbells the lapdragon is just as entertaining as Toothless but for an entirely different reason.

‘That is the most untrainable dragon I have ever seen in my entire life’

No pressure, Hiccup.

The first thing I did when I finished reading this book was buy a signed copy. The second thing I did was order the next five books in the series from the library.

I fell in love with the characters. I looked forward to the next illustration. I laughed. I wished there was a kid in earshot while I was reading so I’d have a legitimate reason to read aloud.

This book is so much fun! I might be twenty years late to the party but I get it now!

For when the world needs a Hero …

… it might as well be YOU.

Thank you so much to Hachette Australia for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

‘The world will need a Hero, and it might as well be you …’

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third is a smallish Viking with a longish name.

The Hairy Hooligan tribe think he’s totally useless, but Hiccup is about to face his destiny … with one tiny dragon.Can he prove his worth and become a HERO or will he be banished from his tribe for ever?

In celebration of 20 years of How to Train Your Dragon, this special commemorative edition features the original – now classic – How to Train Your Dragon story with exclusive content, including some rare Viking material (featuring Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III’s birth certificate!) and a hilarious brand new adventure called How to Train Your Hogfly starring fan favourites as well as exciting new dragons. 

Fully illustrated with Cressida Cowell’s artwork, this is a MUST HAVE for anyone who grew up reading and loving How to Train Your Dragon, as well as the perfect introduction for new readers to this beloved, classic series.

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Girls of Little Hope – Sam Beckbessinger & Dale Halvorsen

WELCOME TO LITTLE HOPE, CA! POPULATION 8,902.

Best friends Donna, Rae and Kat skipped school on Wednesday afternoon to traipse through the woods. Two of them returned on Saturday. One is still missing.

Donna Ramirez is a wannabe rebel. Her mother, who left when Donna was 9, now has a new family. Donna has an older brother, Jay. She lives with her father, Hector, who is fluent in Dad jokes.

Donna doesn’t remember what happened in the woods.

Tammie-Rae (Rae) Hooper is a preppy church girl and star of the athletics team. She lives with her parents and her brother, Brandon. Her parents have a list of “Forbidden Demonic Things”. It’s a long list.

They love you so long as you stay their good girl.

Rae returned from the woods screaming.

Their sweat glands have been on overdrive since they returned and they’re mighty peckish.

“Remember what we promised each other?”

Wallflower nerd Katherine (Kat) Larkin recently began wearing oversized men’s flannel shirts. She’s smart and loves Nancy Drew books.

Kat is still missing.

The story is told by each of the girls as well as Marybeth Larkin, Kat’s mother. Through them, you meet some of Little Hope’s townsfolk, including town boogeyman, Ronnie Gaskins, who murdered his parents when he was a child.

I flew through this book. I wasn’t a fan of the amount of times I read about how much weight one character had gained and the size of another’s breasts but there was a lot to love. The 90’s pop culture nostalgia. The mystery of what happened to the girls during the missing time. The squishy body horror. The newspaper articles and zine pages. Snooping in Kat’s diary. The fact that I was hooked the entire time.

If they didn’t live in a small town, Donna, Rae and Kat may not have ever become friends. If it wasn’t for newspaper club, they probably would have remained acquaintances. They reminded me of the intensity of teenage friendships: the shared experiences and the bonds that feel unbreakable.

I’m a teensy bit obsessed with the prayer to Scully, “our lady of The X-Files”.

Favourite no context quote:

“I will be the Batman of toilets.”

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Three girls went into the woods. Only two came back, covered in blood and with no memory of what happened. Or did they?

Being fifteen is tough, tougher when you live in a boring-ass small town like Little Hope, California (population 8,302) in 1996. Donna, Rae and Kat keep each other sane with the fervour of teen girl friendships, zine-making and some amateur sleuthing into the town’s most enduring mysteries: a lost gold mine, and why little Ronnie Gaskins burned his parents alive a decade ago.

Their hunt will lead them to a hidden cave from which only two of them return alive. Donna the troublemaker can’t remember anything. Rae seems to be trying to escape her memories of what happened, while her close-minded religious family presses her for answers. And Kat? Sweet, wannabe writer Kat who rebelled against her mom’s beauty pageant dreams by getting fat? She’s missing. Dead. Or terribly traumatised, out there in the woods, alone.

As the police circle and Kat’s frantic mother Marybeth starts doing some investigating of her own, Rae and Donna will have to return to the cave where they discover a secret so shattering that no-one who encounters it will ever be the same.

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Willodeen – Katherine Applegate

Illustrations – Charles Santoso

“Nature, Willodeen, knows more than we do, and she probably always will.”

Willodeen has experienced so much more than her share of loss in her short life. She’s a loner who’s much more comfortable in nature than she is around people.

I didn’t understand my own feelings most days. I couldn’t begin to figure out why other people did the things they did.

When Willodeen grudgingly allows Connor into her life, she finds not only a friend but an ally. Together they are magic in the way that only kindred spirits are.

Along the way, Willodeen learns to trust, and finds her voice and courage. She is the most beautiful reminder that one person truly can make a difference.

Willodeen is an absolute sweetheart, Connor is adorable and I want to adopt Duuzuu and Quinby. I loved this book even more than I hoped I would. There was sadness and some tears but my takeaway is hope.

Willodeen left me feeling like I do whenever I finish a Kate DiCamillo book, all warm and fuzzy, and wishing I could hug all of my new friends who live in its pages.

I read my first Katherine Applegate book in the 90’s; it had one of the most profound impacts on me of all the books I read as a kid. It seems I’ve got a lot to catch up on.

Charles Santoso’s illustrations are gorgeous. My favourite shows Duuzuu and Quinby reuniting.

Illustration of Duuzuu and Quinby reuniting

I need to plant some blue willows so I can encourage some hummingbears to visit me.

“There’s magic in all of us,” Birdie said. “Just a bit. You’re born with it, like fingers and toes and fuzzy baby hair. Some of us make use of it. And some of us don’t.”

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Welbeck Flame, an imprint of Welbeck Children’s Limited, for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

The earth is old and we are not, and that is all you must remember…

Eleven-year-old Willodeen adores creatures of all kinds, but her favourites are the most unlovable beasts in the land: strange beasts known as ‘screechers’. The villagers of Perchance call them pests, even monsters, but Willodeen believes the animals serve a vital role in the complicated web of nature.

Lately, though, nature has seemed angry indeed. Perchance has been cursed with fires and mudslides, droughts and fevers, and even the annual migration of hummingbears, a source of local pride and income, has dwindled. For as long as anyone can remember, the tiny animals have overwintered in shimmering bubble nests perched atop blue willow trees, drawing tourists from far and wide. This year, however, not a single hummingbear has returned to Perchance, and no one knows why.

When a handmade birthday gift brings unexpected magic to Willodeen and her new friend, Connor, she’s determined to speak up for the animals she loves, and perhaps even uncover the answer to the mystery of the missing hummingbears.

A timely and timeless tale about our fragile earth, and one girl’s fierce determination to make a difference.

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Emily Wilde #1: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries – Heather Fawcett

“One doesn’t need magic if one knows enough stories”

This book made a liar out of me. I’ve been proudly declaring my romantiphobia for years. I’ve gleefully avoided books that even hint at a romance in the blurb. When I find undisclosed mushy bits, I feel cheated.

And all of this time it turns out that I absolutely adore grumpy romances. Or maybe it’s just Emily Wilde and Wendell Bambleby’s snarky banter that I’ve waiting for my entire life.

Eight years ago, Emily, then 22, was Cambridge’s youngest adjunct professor. She’s still hoping to receive tenure. Bambleby is her friend, her only friend. You can’t exactly accuse them of being warm and fuzzy.

The problem with Bambleby, I’ve always found, is that he manages to inspire a strong inclination towards dislike without the satisfaction of empirical evidence to buttress the sentiment.

Bambleby, for his part, gives as good as he gets.

‘We cannot all be made of stone and pencil shavings’

Grumpy banter is my new favourite thing. I love these two!

For the past nine years, Emily, who has a “heart filled with the dust of a thousand library stacks”, has been hard at work, researching and writing her book. She’s only got one chapter to go, which is why she finds herself in the “delightful winter wasteland” that is Hrafnsvik, Ljosland.

Emily is loveable in all of her social awkwardness. Practically as soon as she meets some villagers, she finds a way to accidentally alienate herself.

How was it that in trying to remove my foot from my mouth, I invariably managed to shove it in even deeper?

There are faeries (obviously) and other magical beings, there’s danger and adventure and just so much snark. And there’s Shadow, who I adored.

I wasn’t entirely sure if this would be the book for me when I started reading but it utterly enchanted me. I can’t wait to spend more time with these grumps!

“How does one manage to affix toast to the ceiling?”

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world’s first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party – or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, Shadow, and the Fair Folk to other people.

So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, muddle Emily’s research, and utterly confound and frustrate her.

But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones – the most elusive of all faeries – lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: Who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she’ll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all – her own heart.

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The Salt Grows Heavy – Cassandra Khaw

“And you shall know her by the trail of dead.”

This is the story of a toothy mermaid and her plague doctor. If you need to know more than that before deciding this is absolutely the book for you, then maybe this is not the book for you. For everyone else, it’s just as dark and weird and strangely beautiful as you’re hoping it will be.

It’s body horror. It’s a love story. It’s hunger. It’s not giving up on one another. It’s a story you should know as little about as possible before you prise open the pages and devour the viscera for yourself.

The writing is gorgeous. Although this read has its own style, it reminded me of Seanan McGuire’s books when she’s writing as Mira Grant. A number of reviewers have already described it as lyrical and I can’t think of a better word to capture the experience of this book. However, I’m certain the author could come up with ten alternatives.

For someone who simply loves words, this novella was practically a playground for me. I stumbled across so many words that were new to me so part of the joy of this read was learning what they all meant. A couple of my new favourites are intaglio and cicatrice.

“Could you assemble a new life from nothing but debris?”

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to read this novella. I can’t wait to read it again!

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

After the murder of her husband and the fall of his empire, a mermaid and her plague doctor companion escape into the wilderness. Deep in the woods, they stumble across a village where children hunt each other for sport, sacrificing one of their own at the behest of three surgeons they call “the saints.” These saints play god with their magic, harvesting the best bits of the children for themselves and piecing the sacrifices back together again.

To save the children from their fates, the plague doctor must confront their past, and the mermaid must embrace the darkest parts of her true nature.

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The Magician’s Daughter – H.G. Parry

“We need to bring magic back into the world.”

If ever there was a book that could make you believe in magic, this is it.

Me? Well, I already believed. But now I believe even more.

Biddy has grown up on the island of Hy-Brasil with Rowan, who is sometimes a raven, and Hutch, who is sometimes not a rabbit. Unlike Rowan and Hutch, Biddy doesn’t have magic.

At almost seventeen, Biddy has never left the island.

She was a liminal person, trapped between a world she’d grown out of and another that wouldn’t let her in.

Throughout her life, Rowan has flown to the mainland. He always returns before dawn … until the day that he doesn’t.

This world invited me in and made me feel at home. I accompanied Biddy as she transformed from a sheltered, bookish girl to a young woman who‘s beginning to discover what she’s capable of.

“In every fairy tale ever told, it’s a bad idea to tangle with a magician’s daughter.”

As I walked alongside her, I not only saw through her eyes but felt what she was experiencing.

My favourite vicarious experience was Biddy’s relationship with Rowan and Hutch. I’m always a sucker for stories that introduce me to found families. This one, though, made me care so deeply about the individuals and their bond that even thinking about the connection between Rowan and Hutch being severed was enough to bring tears to my eyes.

This was a stressful read, in the best way possible. When the characters were in danger I not only feared for their safety but the effect it would have on the others if anything bad happened to them.

Although this is a story of magic and adventure, it is also bookish in so many wonderful ways. Most of what Biddy knows of the outside world, she learned from books and she prepares for new experiences by reading. Their castle (yes, they live in a castle!) has a library with thousands of books. There’s also a library inside a tree!

I’m not sure how this magic works but this read gave me the comfort I feel rereading a childhood favourite while delivering the anticipation of a new book that you can’t put down.

This is going to be one of my favourite reads of the year. I need to read everything this author ever writes.

“It’s all complicated and messy and wild and glorious.”

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Orbit, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group, for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Off the coast of Ireland sits a legendary island hidden by magic. A place of ruins and ancient trees, sea-salt air and fairy lore, Hy-Brasil is the only home Biddy has ever known. Washed up on its shore as a baby, Biddy lives a quiet life with her guardian, the mercurial magician Rowan. A life she finds increasingly stifling.

One night, Rowan fails to return from his mysterious travels. To find him, Biddy must venture into the outside world for the first time. But Rowan has powerful enemies – forces who have hoarded the world’s magic and have set their sights on the magician’s many secrets.

Biddy may be the key to stopping them. Yet the closer she gets to answers, the more she questions everything she’s ever believed about Rowan, her past, and the nature of magic itself.

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The Indian Lake Trilogy #2: Don’t Fear the Reaper – Stephen Graham Jones

“You don’t get to pick your genre”

I love Jade Daniels! Not to bits and pieces, as would be Dark Mill South’s preference, but enough. As far as I’m concerned, she was final girl material long before the events of My Heart is a Chainsaw. You don’t survive what she has without being able to think on your feet, trust what your gut is telling you and learning how to outmanoeuvre whoever’s playing the role of Big Bad today.

Jade’s love and extensive knowledge of horror movies helped her make it to the sequel with a heartbeat. While Jade spent her life prior to Jaws Night praying for a slasher to bloody up Proofrock, she’s not actively trying to conjure up a sequel. Having now lived through a reddening, Jade is only too aware of how it feels when fiction becomes reality.

The girl she used to be would have been thrilled about all this, would have had her black pompoms out, to cheer it on.

She’s different now, though. This isn’t exciting to her anymore. It’s exactly as terrifying as it should be.

Despite the absolute kickassness she displayed in her first Proofrock massacre, Jade still doesn’t see herself as a final girl. She probably never will. But I see you, Jade, even when you’re calling yourself Jennifer.

“But you’re still you. Different name, same girl.”

While I really liked Letha in the first book, she ramped up her badassness in this one. I would distract Dark Mill South to give this woman a better chance of surviving the slaughter.

Initially, I only wanted to hear from Jade. And maybe Letha. It wasn’t long, though, before the multiple perspectives won me over.

I missed Jade’s history essays so much! They were entertaining, insightful and obviously well researched. I need every horror movie to come with a Stephen Graham Jones commentary.

I attended some of the most difficult appointments of my life last year and, in preparation, someone suggested I choose a book character I could channel to get me through them. I chose Jade Daniels. Before every appointment I’d reread all of the sentences I highlighted in My Heart is a Chainsaw. I’d think about Jade’s strength as I walked into every appointment and would borrow what I needed.

When I love a book the way I loved My Heart is a Chainsaw, the prospect of a sequel both thrills and terrifies me. I can’t wait to spend more time with the strangers turned kindred spirits I met in the first book. At the same time, I worry that a sequel won’t be able to replicate the magic I found there. Don’t Fear the Reaper exceeded my expectations.

Now I’m worried about the third book, but only because it’s the final book in the series. I never want to say goodbye to Jade Daniels. She’ll always be my final girl.

Quote that hit me the hardest:

“I was a scared little girl, I thought – I thought if I knew all the rules, if I knew all the rules, then that would mean – that would mean nothing would happen to me!”

Come to Proofrock, the town that’s gonna need a bigger morgue. The snow is red this year, the movie references are prolific and your insides can become your outsides, even though it’s slasher off season.

“They’re-they’re all dead, I think. Including … me.”

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Four years after her tumultuous senior year, Jade Daniels is released from prison right before Christmas when her conviction is overturned. But life beyond bars takes a dangerous turn as soon as she returns to Proofrock. Convicted Serial Killer, Dark Mill South, seeking revenge for thirty-eight Dakota men hanged in 1862, escapes from his prison transfer due to a blizzard, just outside of Proofrock, Idaho.

Dark Mill South’s Reunion Tour began on December 12th, 2019, a Thursday.

Thirty-six hours and twenty bodies later, on Friday the 13th, it would be over.

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The Fervor – Alma Katsu

Two words: spider demon!

Meiko and her twelve year old daughter, Aiko, have been at Camp Minidoka, an internment camp in Idaho, for two years when an unidentified illness begins to spread through the camp.

Archie is a preacher with a past that haunts him.

He’d thought he’d outrun it, but all this time Hell had been waiting for him with its mouth wide open.

Fran is a journalist who’s on the verge of uncovering the story of her career.

You’d think the spider demon would be the scariest thing about this book, but it’s not. The real monster in this story is fear of the other and the hatred it spawns.

This story is mostly set in the 1940’s and, although I’d love to be able to say otherwise, it could easily have been written about today. The racism and xenophobia are incredibly difficult to read about because, although this book is fiction, the interactions between the characters are all too real, and that’s terrifying.

I loved Aiko, an outcast wherever she goes because her mother is Japanese and her father is white. She’s resilient, she’s resourceful and she spends her free time drawing demons.

The demons, Aiko said, knew everything.

I wish more time had been spent with the jorogumo but Google has answered my outstanding questions and shown me some decidedly creepy artwork so I’m all good. For now. I need more Japanese mythology in my life.

The world is rarely what it shows you.

I definitely want to read more books by this author.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

As World War II rages, Meiko shares eerie childhood stories, of yokai and malevolent demons, with her daughter, Aiko. These stories hold them together as they must confront the horror of being shipped to an internment camp in the Midwest. Never mind that Aiko is American, that her father is in the US Navy. They are Japanese. 

As Meiko and Aiko learn to live in captivity, a contagion begins to spread in the camp. What starts as a cold quickly becomes fits of violence and aggression, even death, and soon a government medical team arrive, more sinister than the illness itself. 

Meanwhile strange things are happening outside the camp. Wrecked weather balloons and tragic explosions draw Fran, a German expat journalist, and Archie, a widowed minister, into a world of conspiracy and creatures in the shadows. 

As the world tears itself apart, it falls to Meiko, Fran and Archie to lay their country’s demons to rest.

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Wayward Children #8: Lost in the Moment and Found – Seanan McGuire

Illustrations – Rovina Cai

Every Heart a Doorway remains my favourite book of all time and I can’t imagine a day when Wayward Children won’t be my favourite series. I look forward to January every year so I can renew the search for my own door.

But … a little piece of my heart breaks every time I’m introduced to a wayward child. I can never forget that childhood trauma connects every wayward. After all, if everything in their lives was unicorns and rainbows, they wouldn’t need a door.

“Some children need to escape from places that will only hurt them, or grind them away until they’re nothing. And some children need to go somewhere else if they’re ever going to grow into the people they were meant to be. The Doors choose carefully.”

It’s safe to say that I hurt for every wayward but Antsy’s story broke me in a way that no other has.

That was the fourth thing she lost: the belief that if something made her unhappy or uncomfortable, she could tell an adult who loved her and they would make everything better.

I didn’t run soon enough. I don’t have words to explain how relieved I am that Antsy did. Not that there wasn’t a cost.

Doors always comes with a cost. Maybe you age out of the world where you belong or you accidentally break a rule and it kicks you out. Antsy’s experience with doors is unlike any we’ve been granted access to before and the cost is similarly unique.

When you consider the reason Antsy found her door in the first place, you’ll realise how appropriate the cost is. People who have experienced trauma that’s a similar shape to Antsy’s will likely have seen this cost play out in their own lives. Maybe not as visibly as in Antsy’s story but it’s still recognisable on the inside.

I doubt we’ll ever walk through Seanan’s door and I don’t think we should ever ask that of her because doors and the worlds that lie behind them are personal. However, between the dedication and the existence of cat-people, I’m pretty sure we’ve never been closer to it.

I would never expect anything different from Rovina Cai but I need to say that the illustrations in this book were practically perfect in every way.

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I was absolutely delighted to discover that a couple of my favourite Door-touched people had cameos in this book.

Favourite quote:

“If an adult hurt you, that’s on them, not on you. Being bruised doesn’t make you bad, unless you’re a peach, and even a bruised peach is good for making jam.”

I’m thinking of starting a petition to name every month January so I don’t have to wait so long to go on my next not a quest with a wayward.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Welcome to the Shop Where the Lost Things Go.

If you ever lost a sock, you’ll find it here.
If you ever wondered about favourite toy from childhood… it’s probably sitting on a shelf in the back.
And the headphones that you swore that this time you’d keep safe? You guessed it…

Antoinette has lost her father. Metaphorically. He’s not in the shop, and she’ll never see him again. But when Antsy finds herself lost (literally, this time), she finds that however many doors open for her, leaving the Shop for good might not be as simple as it sounds.

And stepping through those doors exacts a price.

Lost in the Moment and Found tells us that childhood and innocence, once lost, can never be found.

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Mort the Meek #3: Mort the Meek and the Perilous Prophecy – Rachel Delahaye

Illustrations – George Ermos

Welcome to Brutalia, where the smell hits you before the locals do. I’m proud to say that my visits thus far have not resulted in ravens eating my eyes. I’ve also somehow managed to avoid being mauled or hugged to death by a Grot Bear.

So why would I want to brave the dangers of Crashbang Cove to return to a decidedly unwelcoming, rat infested island where the locals extend “fists of ferocity”? 

Well, it might have something to do with a trio of locals whose ethos doesn’t quite line up with that of their fellow Brutalians.

“Fighting for what’s right without fighting is always a bit of a struggle,” Mort said. “But, if we surrender, the war on violence will be over.”

Mort, his best friend Weed and tone deaf Punky comprise three quarters of the Pacifist Society of Brutalia. When I tell you Mort and Weed are about to go to war, you’ll understand they’re not exactly thrilled about it.

In this book we meet the locals of Bonrock, who may seem friendly but are they really more interested in torture? We also encounter war toucans, watch poor Doris get demoted and are introduced to Brutalia’s new soup sayer!

I always look forward to the quips at the beginning of each chapter in this series. In the first book, these were made by a couple of chatty, eye hungry ravens. In the second book, we met lobsters Larry and Bruce. This time, we’re introduced to Ratto and Ratty.

Brutalia has long been a place where a misunderstood homonym can result in grievous bodily harm. When you read the author’s bio and discover they studied linguistics, it makes sense how much fun words get to have in this series. It’s easy to imagine the homonyms hanging out with the homophones and the synonyms playing hide and seek with the similes. 

George Ermos’ cover image was what interrupted my scrolling long enough for me to read the blurb of the first book. The illustrations in this book add to the humour. The characters are expressive and there are plenty of fighty, ratty and soupy moments.

Come to Brutalia, where the locals “live like cockroaches and smell like a thousand demon farts”. You won’t be disappointed, although you may need a long, hot shower when you get home.

Favourite no context quote:

“I listen only to the soup.”

Readers with emetophobia may have trouble with some scenes.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Stripes Publishing, an imprint of Little Tiger Group, for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

When Brutalia’s ever suspicious Queen is forewarned of a new enemy – a nearby island called Bonrock – Mort is worried. As a pacifist, he’s a firm believer that strangers are just friends they haven’t met yet. Then he and his best friend and fellow pacifist Weed are sent to the island to investigate.

But Bonrock is a warm and welcoming place, with luscious landscapes and tropical waters. Mort’s relieved – there’s no need to fight! Until they stumble upon something terrifying… Perhaps there really is trouble in paradise?

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