Series Review: The Edge Chronicles Quint Saga by Paul Stewart and ChrisRiddell

We have a real treat today, a middle-grade series reviewed by an actual eleven year old. I was sent these books by random house last year and gave them to one of my more able readers at school. He loved them, devouring them in just over a week. I asked him to write a review of them and here is what we have...

‘Oh, Sky above!’ Linius wailed. ‘If I had known then what I know now…’

Quint, son of a sky pirate captain, and new apprentice to Linius Pallitax, the Most High Academe, has been set some highly important tasks. Just how important, Quint is about to find out as he and Linius’s only daughter, Maris, are plunged into a terrifying adventure that takes them deep within the rock upon which Sanctaphrax is built. Here, they unwittingly invoke an ancient curse — the curse of the gloamglozer…

A dramatic and exuberant fantasy filled with colourful characters and illustrated with exquisite detail.

 

Review: this action-packed, amazing series will make you never want to close the book once you've opened it. It has cliff hangers, suspense and everything you would need in an action/adventure book. 

Quint starts off as a normal knight academy student but when the floating city Sanctaphanx needs help because a giant icy monster is making it winter, only you sky pirate Quint can save the day. Arsons killed nearly all the sky pirates and ran away, but they came back and the last two sky pirates are going to take revenge! 

Quint is a heroic main character that always looks for happiness an justice. He is one of my favourite characters because he wants to be like his dad, a great sky pirate and wants to follow in his foot-steps. 

The setting is a giant castle that is called Knight Academy, where quite learns and trains to become a great knight. The castle has separate passages and it's huge so I think it's the perfect setting! 

I would recommend this book to action/adventure readers but not to romance lovers! I like this book, it has become one of my favourites! 

Review: Storm and Stone by Joss Stirling

Behind the ivy-clad walls of an exclusive boarding school, lurks a sinister web of corruption, scandal, and conspiracy. American student Raven Stone has noticed something is horribly wrong. First there were the unexplained disappearances. Then there were the teachers' lies. And now the death threats ...Also entangled in the disturbing turn of events is the enigmatic Kieran Storm - a fellow student with a killer intellect and a body to die for. He's heading for trouble and taking her with him. Raven can feel herself falling in love, but can she trust a boy she knows almost nothing about?

Review: this is a very different kind of book for me and so it did take me a while to get into this, if you are used to reading this kind of YA contemporary though you will have no trouble. And no trouble was exactly what I had when I eventually got into this little gem of a novel. I wasn't so hooked on the character of Raven and so it wasn't until the boys (Kieran and Joe) got involved that I felt the story gathered any pace for me. I felt there was someone about Raven, that she was wallowing in something but I wasn't sure what And I wished she would just shut up and get on with it. The boys were new to the the school and I felt like I was in the same boat as them starting out reading the books with them and so I think I identified with these characters more! 

I knew nothing about this storyline but I found it really interesting. It reminded me a little of the St Trinians stories, but most of all of the Demon Headmaster which was a major favourite of mine as a child and so I enjoyed the school setting and the idea of something not quite right going on inside a school. Being a teacher myself I did become worried about risk assessments and the children's progress over the course of the novel but I managed to squash this most of the time. This story had a lot more action than I normally like in a book but I found it quite exciting and wouldn't rule out reading another novel with this level of action if it was a well-written as this one! 

The love story that goes alongside the action in this novel is a classic protective male, slightly clueless female storyline initially, however, things do evolve and in the end, this female is anything it helpless! I really liked the friendship aspect of the story too and was a surprisingly pleasurable sub-plot! I think if you are a fan of Joss Stirling's other writing, you definitely won't be disappointed with her latest novel. If, like me, to are slightly newer to this genre I think this is an excellent way to ease yourself in and there is enough of a love story there for even the most die hard of romance fans! 

Noble Conflict by Malorie Blackman Book Trailer

Back in March I attended the Random House Bloggers' Brunch. We were shown an image and given a date (6/6/13) and that's all we were told...

This week I was sent a link to the trailer for this new novel by Malorie Blackman-Noble Conflict. I'm always on the lookout for something new and exciting, and this YA novel certainly looks that:

Years after a violent war destroyed much of the world, Kaspar has grown up in a society based on peace and harmony. But beyond the city walls, a vicious band of rebels are plotting to tear this peace apart. It is up to the Guardians - an elite peacekeeping force - to protect the city, without ever resorting to the brutal methods of their enemy.

When Kaspar joins the Guardians, he has a chance encounter with a rebel - a beautiful girl named Rhea. Haunted from that moment on by strange visions and memories - memories that could only belong to Rhea - he realises he hasn't been told the truth about what the rebels really want, and what he's really fighting for.

Here's the link to the trailer http://www.randomhousesites.co.uk/childrens/malorieblackman/NC-Trailer-v9.mov Ill let you go and see for yourselves the mystery that surrounds this novel...

The book is released next Thursday (6th June) you can pre-order now from all the usual sources!