Blog Tour: The Shadow Glass

I received a gifted copy of the book from the publisher, Titan Books, in exchange for an honest review.

I am very much a child of the 80s, and a huge fan of Jim Henson, so when Lydia from Titan Books emailed about The Shadow Glass by Josh Winning, describing it as perfect for readers who fit both those things, I didn’t take much persuading! I was immediately sold on the concept – a film very much in the style of The Dark Crystal flops at the box office in the 80s and becomes a cult film, and decades later, the creator’s son has to come to terms with the idea that the world and characters of that film might actually exist. There’s more to it than that of course, but as a hook, it’s brilliant.

Jack Corman is failing at life. Jobless, jaded and facing the threat of eviction, he’s also reeling from the death of his father, one-time film director Bob Corman. Back in the eighties, Bob poured his heart and soul into the creation of his 1986 puppet fantasy The Shadow Glass, but the film flopped on release and Bob was never the same again.

In the wake of Bob’s death, Jack returns to his decaying childhood home, where he is confronted with the impossible — the puppet heroes from The Shadow Glass are alive, and they need his help. Tipped into a desperate quest to save the world from the more nefarious of his father’s creations, Jack teams up with an excitable fanboy and a spiky studio exec to navigate the labyrinth of his father’s legacy and ignite a Shadow Glass resurgence that could, finally, do Bob proud.

The first thing I want to say is how much The Shadow Glass felt like it was about a real film. It has excerpts from reviews, articles, transcripts of interviews and panel appearances and I got a real sense of what it was like to be a fan of the film, as well as the hope and despair cycle those fans had been through in the previous 30+ years. The book also managed to make me feel like I was in one of those Jim Henson films (or, in this case, a Bob Corman film), and I loved that. I was properly immersed in the action and I really cared about what was at stake.

As I said above, The Shadow Glass isn’t just about the puppets and fantasy world being real. It’s also about Jack coming to terms with his relationship with his father and learning how to reconnect with the person he used to be. Jack has a lot of anger and resentment towards his father and struggles to reconcile the Bob Corman he knew as a teenager and adult, with the Bob Corman that fans idolise. I really liked that there was a coming together of both sides of Bob for Jack and Toby, a fanboy who joins Jack in trying to save the world. There’s also regret, and grief, and the book is as much about dealing with the death of a parent as it is about saving the world. It was a really interesting angle to take, and it worked really well.

Character-wise, The Shadow Glass is stuffed full of interesting people (and puppets). Zavannah and Brol are brilliant, kettu from the fantasy world of Iri who are fantastic fighters, and the bad guys from that world are exceedingly violent and creepy. The human characters are also great – Toby and his friends, who love the film, and cosplay and campaign for a charity showing as a tribute to Bob, are a brilliant representation of fandom and the good it can do, and kickass Amelia just takes everything in her stride while reminding Jack about the good things about his father.

I was a bit worried before I read The Shadow Glass that it might lean a bit too much towards horror for me, but it was fine. There are some horroresque scenes – the bad guys do not hold back and there is a lot of death – but I’d put it on the same level as something like Gremlins. Lots of gore, but nothing too horrific.

So I really enjoyed The Shadow Glass. It really is perfect for anyone who grew up watching cult 80s fantasy films and I think Jim Henson would be very happy to know he was still inspiring people today.

Don’t forget to check out the other stops on the blog tour!

4.5/5

The Shadow Glass is out now from Titan Books

Book review: Yesterday Crumb and the Storm in a Teacup

My copy of Yesterday Crumb and the Storm in a Teacup was gifted to me by the publisher, Hachette Children’s Group, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Yesterday Crumb is no ordinary girl. She was born with fox ears that have cursed her to a lonely life working in the circus and her origins are a complete mystery. But she is about to escape into the adventure of a lifetime when she learns that she’s a strangeling who’s lost her magic.

Taken in by Miss Dumpling the flamboyant Tea Witch, Yesterday is introduced to a magical, walking teashop filled with fantastical customers, a flying teapot turtle called Pascal and powerful spells in every teacup!

Yesterday starts to rediscover her magic and to feel a sense of belonging. But a mysterious figure of darkness is working hard to ensure her new life comes crashing down – and it all starts with a deadly shard of ice in Yesterday’s heart…

But there’s nothing that can’t be solved with a pot of tea, a slice of cake and a BIG dash of magic!

Sometimes, you come across a book and you just know you’re going to love it. It might be the lead character’s name (Yesterday Crumb is an amazing name for a children’s book character), it might be the comparisons to other book series (This one was compared to The Strangeworlds Travel Agency and Starfell, two of my favourite series), or it might just be the synopsis (there’s a tea witch and a magical walking teashop. What more do you need?!). In this case, it was all three, and let me tell you, this is already a contender for my book of the year. I absolutely adored Yesterday Crumb and the Storm in a Teacup by Andy Sagar, and I highly recommend you pick up a copy.

I’m not even sure where to begin with this book. Everything about it was fantastic. The main characters – Yesterday herself, Miss Dumpling, Madrigal and Jack – are all brilliant, and make up one of my favourite found families. Madrigal, the grumpy not-raven with a heart of gold may have been my favourite, but I loved all of them. Mr Weep and his gang of minions was the perfect antagonist for the story, sufficiently creepy to make you worry for our heroes, but with an intriguing backstory which went some way to explaining his motivations.

My absolute favourite thing about this book though, was Dwimmerly End, the magical teashop where Yesterday finds herself, complete with the cutest tea spirit you have ever seen in a book. I want to live there. I’ll even volunteer to muck out the unicorn stables if necessary, as long as I get to drink Miss Dumpling’s wonderful tea and eat her amazing cake while travelling around the country in a teashop on legs. It honestly just sounds so welcoming and full of sunshine. If I can also train as a tea witch, that would be a bonus, but I’m not a strangeling, so I don’t think I have any magic.

So the characters and setting are amazing, what’s the story like, I hear you ask. Well, you’ll be unsurprised to learn that it is also amazing. We travel to various places to find the ingredients needed for the pot of tea to lift the curse Mr Weep has laid on Yesterday for nefarious reasons of his own and it’s a proper rip-roaring adventure. At the same time, Yesterday is trying to learn how to use her magic, training as a tea witch under the most immense pressure, and everything comes together to form a truly satisfying plot. Is it clear yet just how much I loved this book?

I really can’t recommend Yesterday Crumb and the Storm in a Teacup highly enough. If you have kids of the appropriate age, they are definitely going to love it, but it’s such a good book that there’s plenty for adults to enjoy too. It’s the sort of book that makes you give a big sigh of contentment when you’ve finished it, shortly before you start desperately wishing for the sequel!

5/5

Yesterday Crumb and the Storm in a Teacup is out on Thursday 17th March

Book review: The Atlas Six

My copy of The Atlas Six was gifted to me by Black Crow PR via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Secrets. Betrayal. Seduction.

Welcome to the Alexandrian Society.

When the world’s best magicians are offered an extraordinary opportunity, saying yes is easy. Each could join the secretive Alexandrian Society, whose custodians guard lost knowledge from ancient civilizations. Their members enjoy a lifetime of power and prestige. Yet each decade, only six practitioners are invited – to fill five places.

Contenders Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona are inseparable enemies, cosmologists who can control matter with their minds. Parisa Kamali is a telepath, who sees the mind’s deepest secrets. Reina Mori is a naturalist who can perceive and understand the flow of life itself. And Callum Nova is an empath, who can manipulate the desires of others. Finally there’s Tristan Caine, whose powers mystify even himself.

Following recruitment by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they travel to the Society’s London headquarters. Here, each must study and innovate within esoteric subject areas. And if they can prove themselves, over the course of a year, they’ll survive. Most of them. 

So I really wasn’t sure what I was going to make of The Atlas Six, by Olivie Blake. I’d seen the hype, but I wasn’t convinced it deserved it, and it really didn’t sound like my kind of thing. And I have to say, now that I’ve read it, I’m still not convinced it deserves the hype. It must be said, dark academia is not my jam. I find the concept interesting, but I’ve generally found the execution to be lacking, and The Atlas Six was no exception. Which is a shame, because a book about six people plucked from their lives in order to become some of the most powerful people in the world sounds fascinating, especially when you add magic into the mix.

It started so well. I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed the first few chapters, meeting our characters and watching Atlas recruit them to the Society. It ended well too. The last few chapters were breathtaking and I literally couldn’t put it down because I had to know what was going to happen. The problem for me was the bit in the middle, which was just meh. Granted, it gave me enough investment in the characters and story for those last chapters to have an impact, so it wasn’t all bad, but there was just too much sitting around trying to sound clever for me to fully enjoy it. Only a couple of the characters seemed to show any growth over the course of the book, and I found the timeline confusing. It also features one of the most unlikeable characters I’ve ever come across in the form of Callum. I am not someone who thinks everyone needs to be likeable, but he had no redeeming features whatsoever.

I did like most of the characters, even if there wasn’t any growth, although some of the side characters (looking at you Gideon) seemed much more interesting than our main six. I liked Nico and Libby, although I’d have liked them more with less bickering and mistrust, and I found Tristan intriguing and actually, he may have been my favourite of the main characters.

As much as I found the middle something of a slog, I do have to admit that I keep thinking about the story and what happens next, so I guess I’m invested enough to read the sequel. I’m not exaggerating when I say those last chapters really grabbed me and didn’t let go, and I’m fairly certain at least a star and a half of my rating is due solely to them!

So would I recommend The Atlas Six? If you’re a fan of dark academia already then yes, this is probably right up your street. I’d probably receommend it if you’re on the fence about the genre, because it’s certainly going to help you come down on one side or the other. If you’re already not a fan though, I don’t think this book will change your mind. I’m glad I read it, and I’ll be looking out for the sequel, but it’s definitely not top of my recommendation list.

3.5/5

The Atlas Six was released in the UK by Tor UK on 3rd March 2022. Thanks again to Black Crow PR for the gifted copy.

Book review: Gallant

My copy of Gallant was gifted to me by the publisher, Titan Books, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Sixteen-year-old Olivia Prior is missing three things: a mother, a father, and a voice. Her mother vanished all at once, and her father by degrees, and her voice was a thing she never had to start with.

She grew up at Merilance School for Girls. Now, nearing the end of her time there, Olivia receives a letter from an uncle she’s never met, her father’s older brother, summoning her to his estate, a place called Gallant. But when she arrives, she discovers that the letter she received was several years old. Her uncle is dead. The estate is empty, save for the servants. Olivia is permitted to remain, but must follow two rules: don’t go out after dusk, and always stay on the right side of a wall that runs along the estate’s western edge.

Beyond it is another realm, ancient and magical, which calls to Olivia through her blood…

I was so excited when I was approved for an e-arc of Gallant on Netgalley. Anyone who’s been reading this blog for a while will know that I adore V E Schwab’s writing, but I’d missed out on a physical arc and thought I wouldn’t get to read it until it released. I have to say, it’s not my favourite Schwab book, but it’s wonderfully creepy and beautifully written.

Olivia is a great main character. At Merilance, she keeps herself to herself, partly through choice, partly because the other children don’t want to know her. She’s quick and clever and knows that her lack of voice means other people underestimate her, which she uses to her advantage. Once she arrives at Gallant, she’s not daunted by the things she finds there, even when her only known relative screams at her to leave. I really liked that Gallant was important to her, despite her mother’s warnings, because it was somewhere she belonged. And her joy when she realised that Edgar could understand her sign language was beautiful. I also really liked that, although her lack of a voice did other her in many situations, she knew her own worth and never wished to be able to speak.

The other characters are great too. Hannah and Edgar, the two servants in the house, are parental substitutes to both Olivia and her cousin, Matthew, and I loved seeing Olivia get used to having people who cared about her. It was also interesting to see the toll living in the house had on Matthew and wonder if that was Olivia’s future too.

However, as good as the characters are, Gallant’s real strength is the setting and world-building. In fact, it’s so good, it’s almost another character. Both versions of Gallant are described so vividly I can still picture them, and the whole concept of the two houses mirroring each other and the backstory we eventually get are so good. Schwab builds up the creep factor throughout the book, until we finally see the master of the other house and realise why everyone’s so scared of him. I loved this. I was almost holding my breath as I was reading so he didn’t discover me! And the ghouls! I loved the ghouls and the part they had to play in the story. I also loved the way we slowly realise why Olivia can see them.

There isn’t really much of a plot as such. There’s a throughline of Olivia discovering who she is and who her family are, but it’s very much a character piece. I can’t say nothing much happens, because that’s not true, and there is a big reveal of why there are two Gallants the connection of the Prior family to the house, but it’s much more about getting Olivia from point a to point b. I liked it for that, but the main reason this was a four star read and not a five star one for me was that there really wasn’t much of an ending, except in terms of Olivia’s journey, and it just felt a bit anti-climactic. I can’t really explain this very well without spoiling it, which I’m obviously not going to do, but I was disappointed. It was probably a good place to leave Olivia, but not a good place to leave the book if that makes sense.

I would still recommend Gallant. As I said above, the writing is gorgeous and it really pulled me into the world. I happily gave the book four stars. I just would have liked that ending to be a bit…more.

4/5

Gallant is out today from Titan Books