Skip to main content

Featured

Blog Tour Review - Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Blog Tour Review - Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky To fix the world they first must break it further. Humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labor and service. When a domesticated robot gets a nasty little idea downloaded into their core programming, they murder their owner. The robot then discovers they can also do something else they never did before: run away. After fleeing the household, they enter a wider world they never knew existed, where the age-old hierarchy of humans at the top is disintegrating, and a robot ecosystem devoted to human wellbeing is finding a new purpose. There is so much to love in Service Model, but one of the things I most love about it is the peculiar blend of charming innocence and insightful cynicism. Uncharles the domestic robot is such a simple soul (though he would state that he has no soul and this is an inaccurate description). He approaches the end of the world with optimism and hope, or whatever equivalent to these emotions h
1 comment
Read more
Labels

Review - The Vanishing Trick

The Vanishing Trick by Jenni Spangler








 Madame Augustina Pinchbeck, travels the country conjuring the spirits of dearly departed loved ones... for a price. Whilst her ability to contact ghosts is a game of smoke and mirrors, there is real magic behind her tricks too - if you know where to look.
 
Through a magical trade, she persuades children to part with precious objects, promising to use her powers to help them. But Pinchbeck is a deceiver, instead turning their items into enchanted Cabinets that bind the children to her and into which she can vanish and summon them at will.
 
When Pinchbeck captures orphan Leander, events are set into motion that see him and his new friends Charlotte and Felix, in a race against time to break Pinchbeck’s spell, before one of them vanishes forever…




This is one of the darkest, creepiest middle grade books I've read!

Madame Pinchbeck is a truly horrifying villain, and I loved her mixture of showmanship, manipulation and control. It was done so cleverly that it would be quite believable (and almost as horrible) even without the magic. One element I particularly liked was her relationship with Felix, one of the trapped children who had been with her the longest. The expression of Stockholm Syndrome was really believable and powerful and made his character particularly interesting in its complexity. Similarly, the relationship between Leander and Charlotte was complex and fascinating, with their different upbringings reflected in their attitudes to stealing, for one thing.

The fairytale elements were woven in really skillfully, with the background slowly being revealed in a way that kept me enthralled, as the novel built up to a dramatic and exciting climax.

I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to anybody interested in dark fairytale stories.

Exciting, scary, fantastic.


I'm giving The Vanishing Trick five moons

🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕
The Vanishing Trick by Jenni Spangler is published today, 30th April 2020, by Simon and Schuster. I was given an eProof in return for an honest review on Netgalley.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts