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Blog Tour Review - Looking for Lucie by Amanda Addison

 Blog Tour Review - Looking for Lucie by Amanda Addison "Where are you really from?" It's a question every brown girl in a white-washed town is familiar with, and one that Lucie has never been able to answer. All she knows is that her mother is white, she's never met her father, and she looks nothing like the rest of her family. She can't even talk about it because everyone says it shouldn't matter! Well, it matters to Lucie and-with her new friend Nav, who knows exactly who he is-she's determined to find some answers. What do you do when your entire existence is a question with no answer? You do a DNA test. Looking for Lucie is a fascinating look at what it is like growing up mixed race in contemporary Britain. It's a story about family and culture, and what they can mean for different people, as Lucie tries to figure out where she fits into the world. She doesn't look like any of the rest of her family, and her ethnicity is impossible to figure o
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Review - The Castle of Tangled Magic by Sophie Anderson

The Castle of Tangled Magic by Sophie Anderson

Magic awaits, all you have to do is believe... When thirteen-year-old Olia steps through a magical doorway, she discovers another land. A land tangled by magic, where hope is lost, and a scheming wizard holds all the power. Soon Olia learns that she is destined to save this land, but with time running out and her new friends and family in danger, she must search for the magic within herself - to save everything and everyone she loves.



 

With The Castle of Tangled Magic, Sophie Anderson has woven Russian folklore together with modern fantasy and a lovely family and created something special and unique. 

It is a superb story about magic, family, bravery and home, and I absolutely adored it.

Unlike Sophie's first two novels, this one is a "portal" story, where Olia, who already lives in a wondrous and probably magical castle, travels through a portal with a household spirit into a land of pure magic. A land where everything is starting to fall apart, where she needs to find allies and find her way and find a solution before everything unravels completely. There's such an overwhelming sense of peril, that kept me absolutely gripped. The fairy tale creatures she meets are fascinating too, drawn from a Russian folklore that I'm really not familiar with, to give the whole thing a sense of being different and intriguing. And as with all the best fairy tales, things are never quite what they first seem. 

It's a story about family too, and the depiction of Olia's family is really nicely done. Unlike some other portal stories, I always felt that she had something to succeed for and someone to go home too, and that increased the tension. She never had the chance to just wander around and explore the land she found herself in because of her family and home calling her back.

It's another magical story from a magical writer at the top of her game.

A definite five moon read!

🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕


The Castle of Tangled Magic is out now, from Usborne. I was given an eproof in return for an honest review.

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