Georgie the Royal Prince Fairy by Daisy Meadows

I read this with my 7-year-old daughter who loved it. Anyone who has read any of the rainbow fairy books before will know why. They are designed perfectly for her age group. Each story features best friends Kirsty and Rachel having to help out a fairy friend from Fairyland in their perpetual battle with Jack Frost and the goblins. This one is no different.

This story is about Georgie the Royal Prince Fairy. Jack Frost has stolen her special royal seal because it can make him royal. Georgie needs the seal to make official "all naming ceremonies of royal princes".  It falls upon Kirsty and Rachel to help Georgie sort it out of course.

Also along the way there are a number of clear and simple pictures to bring the text alive, and the story is written in big text too ideal for early readers.

As for my daughter she loved the story, the pictures and also the opening poem. If I was to be critical I would say that if you read a lot of these rainbow fairy books the plots are rather similar with the girls having to recover a lost item for a fairy from Jack Frost and the goblins in each book, but my daughter doesn't mind. 

Overall a typical rainbow fairy story that little girls will love.

Published: 2 Jan 2014

Available at Amazon (£3.85 at time of writing): Georgie the Royal Prince Fairy 

The Merrybegot by Julie Hearn

What did people do before they had TVs? The answer is they went witch hunting. This book is set at "the height of the witch craze in England" in the 1640s. The main character is Nell and she becomes the innocent victim of one of these witch hunts, on the verge of being hanged at one point.

The story is in two parts interlinking parts. That of Nell, and the confession of Patience Madden, one of the village minister's daughters. Together they form the story of what happened.

The minister is "a right miserable bogger. A killjoy and a Puritan." So what would he do if one of her unwed daughters got pregnant? He'd cover it up and blame her daughter's period of hiding on a witch, that witch being Nell. But Nell is a merrybegot, "a child sacred to nature", thus has powers on her side to help her survive this victimisation. 

The minister enrols the help of Matthew Hopkins, the Witch-Finder General, a character who existed in real life. The other real life figure that features in the story is Charles II. However it is a fictional world with fairies and piskies featuring so any historians wanting to moan about the accuracy of their cameos should not bother.

The book does well to bring out the way it must have been felt to be the innocent victim of a witch hunt, and how powerless women and girls were when more reputable, in the eyes of society, people accused them and worked the locals up into a frenzy to nail them. 

The story does fizzle out at the end as all the loose ends are tied up after the main story arc has come to a conclusion, but overall a really enjoyable read.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed HERE.)

Krystal Bull Rain Dancer by Shirley Harber

This is a book that I won in a Goodreads First Reads contest. 

The story follows Krystal Bull whose mother is a psychic. At the beginning the main characters and their situations are seamlessly introduced allowing you to get into the story immediately. There's Krystal whose 13th birthday it is, her mum who is single now and dieting, and Mr. Wormley, the French teacher from school who "is all bad breath and B.O."

Krystal's character is well-written. She comes across as being very much a teenage girl, with her "oh puh...leeeeze!" type of language, the way she terms boys as fit or not and how she worries about what people will say about her when she does embarrassing things.

At the beginning Mr. Wormley has a sitting with Krystal's mum and that goes wrong with a flash of lightning bringing it to an end. After that Krystal meets a cowgirl called Jessie who is her spirit guide. Jessie tells her "You've inherited special psychic powers today, your thirteenth birthday. They're extra special on account of who you are."

And so Krystal learns she is the first female descendant of Chief Sitting Bull, along the English line, and he has left her something, only another spirit guide, Red Tomahawk, is after it too.

The "rain dancer" part of the title refers to what the gift is, it is a recording of Sitting Bull's rain dance chant, and because of Krystal's special powers when she hears it she can't control herself and starts to dance (these moments being highlights in the book).

Some bits of the book could have been better, such as a terrifying car ride to Heathrow that was over before it got started, and I don't know how necessary it was to put in a scene about Krystal getting her period, but overall this should appeal to teenage girls as Krystal is very much one of them.

(This book is available on Amazon UK HERE.)

Tiger's Eye by Barbra Annino

You know this is going to be a quirky novel right from the off, what with the doggy quotes at the beginning of most chapters (example: "I spilled spot remover on my dog. He's gone now." Steven Wright).

Stacey Justice is a quirky character too, matching the image portrayed on the front cover. She's a reporter on the paper that her father helped set up. There are three mysteries that she solves through this novel: 1) Who was behind the death of her father many years ago, 2) The mystery of the sad collie dog named Keesha, and 3) Why did Lolly's fiancé disappear just before her wedding, also a long time ago?

And Stacey Justice isn't just a normal human, she belongs to a family of witches, so she has some magic up her sleeve too, and has given the tag the "Seeker of Justice" based on predictions written in the family's "Blessed Book of the Garaghty Clan" that has been passed down the generations.

This is the third book featuring Stacey Justice (the first two being Opal Fire and Bloodstone with a fourth on the way later in 2013 called Emerald Isle), but I got by without having read the first two perfectly fine, although I obviously missed out on the character bios so it did get a little confusing knowing who Lolly, Birdie, Cinnamon and others were in relation to Stacey early on.

The novel is upbeat throughout, Stacey is a busy woman zipping from place to place, and has lots of friends (coming from a small town means she knows everyone), making this book a fun read.

I got this book through Amazon Vine UK. It is listed HERE.

Struck by Jennifer Bosworth

The end of the world is coming and Mia Price is involved. She knows not how though.

This book picks up Mia's life from after a devastating earthquake that has hit LA. Another devastating event (the end of the world?) is also on the horizon. And everyone wants a bit of Mia. She has great power coming from being struck by lightning several times. The seekers are after her, as are the followers of a prophet, as is a handsome young devil called Jeremy to provide the love interest. She is oblivious to her power and role to play.

Bit by bit the picture unfolds as Mia discovers what is going on and how she can stop the end of the world. The novel builds and the storm comes to end the novel. But will the world be saved?

A striking novel (if you forgive the pun) with a plot that builds and builds. Well worth reading.

(I go this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Ship of Souls by Zetta Elliott

This is a fantasy novel set in New York. D is a foster child having lost his mum to cancer, and never knowing his dad. One day he discovers a magic bird that needs him to help her save the lost souls of many dead people who have been prevented from making the final journey on the "ship of souls".

For me I was alright with the beginning of this book which introduced the back-story, D, his friends and his family circumstances, but then the fantasy elements came in and I was a little unconvinced by it all. Maybe that was because the magic bird was such a weak character (in my eyes at least) lacking a clear mission and a clear identity. Also D at the end of the book decides he has nothing to live for which was surprising given the promising life it looked like he had ahead of him, so I was unconvinced by that too.

Perhaps if the book was fleshed out it would have been better, so D's life would have looked worse and the danger parts could have been more suspenseful. As it was those parts were over in an instant. Reading the blurb suggests there is a lot going on but the full story is squashed into not far past 100 pages.

The book was still ok, but could have been better.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Briefs Encountered by Julian Clary

This book was written by comedian Julian Clary, but if you're thinking it's a laugh-all-the-way-through type of novel then you'd be sadly mistaken. This is a serious novel about a house with a history (hence ghosts).

For me it was a novel of two halves: the first being a plodding affair mainly concerning relationships, mainly man-on-man, but the second, following a death or two, got interesting with an element of foreboding to it all.

Throughout the story is told in two different eras, the 1920s-1950s covering Noel Coward's tenure at the property, and the modern day telling the story of actor Richard Stent's stay there having bought the house from one Julian Clary (a character in his own book - he has one big ego doesn't he). Then at the end the two eras collide in a satisfying climax (having read a few double entendres in the book it seems to be rubbing off on me; I'd better stop now before I get ahead of myself).

End of review. 

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed on Amazon here.)

Soul Beach by Kate Harrison

Soul Beach is the first part of a trilogy of books. Therefore there are some loose ends at the end although the book also works in isolation too. It's just you may want to read them all together just to find out what happens to all the characters because the book does draw you in.

The story follows central character 16-year-old Alice Forster. Her older sister, Meggie, was murdered and no-one knows who by. So after her death when Alice gets an email from Meggie she dismisses it as a prank. However it turns out it was her sister that sent it from a paradise full of dead people who died young - Soul Beach. But it turns out it isn't such a paradise after all and it falls upon Alice to help guests get out of that place.

The book turns out to be quite sinister in places, which is what you'd probably expect given it is about life after death. However it was an intriguing read and there is resolution to one part of the storyline. I'll just have to wait now for the other books in the trilogy to be released to see how the rest of the story unfolds I guess.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed there here.)

10,000 Zombies: Create More Than 10,000 Zombies and 10,000 Stories by Alexander Cox

First thing to say is even though there are scissor marks on the front cover you don't need to cut the pages of this book as it comes pre-cut with all the bits attached to a swivel spine.

Second thing to say is that I haven't tested all 10,000 combinations of stories and pictures but I have studied all the component parts. The stories are well written and action-packed although it is obvious that there are breaks in them and sometimes they don't work (e.g. he was an armless zombie, then I grabbed his hand). The images are good too, and imaginative.

Third thing to say this is a novelty gift really. It might be good for zombie lovers like people that play zombie games such as Dead Island, Dead Rising etc. A book to look at every once in a while for a bit of fun.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed on Amazon here.)

Prince of Dorkness: Diary of a Wimpy Vampire (Book 2) by Tim Collins

Nigel Mullet is a teenage vampire, albeit a wimpy one, and this book is his diary of a school term where he has to suffer all the woes that befall normal (i.e. non-vampires) teenagers such as having a girlfriend and having a petty rivalry with another student.

I haven't read twilight before but others have said this is a parody of that. Nigel does attempt to write a vampire-romance novel and extracts are in the book which I thought did mock how I imagine the Twilight series would be but the overall book I think stands alone on its own.

I have to say that I enjoyed this book. It really did come across as if it were written by a teenager, and all the vampire clichés were in here as well - such as them drinking blood. I think the pictures added extra imagery to the words too.

And the humour - it wasn't overstated or too silly. I thought it was just right. The length of the book was correct as well (with humour it can sometimes wear if the book is too long).

I couldn't really fault it.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed on Amazon here.)