For today’s stop on Robyn Silver: The Midnight Chimes Blog Tour I will be reviewing this enjoyable middle grade story.

Synopsis

Life was very ordinary for ten-year-old Robyn Silver. The often-ignored middle child in a big family, the most excitement she had was the dash to the dinner table to reach the last slice of pizza. Until… she begins to see creepy creatures around her town – creatures that are invisible to everyone else. And when her school is forced to decamp to mysterious Grimdean House and she meets its equally mysterious owner, Mr Cryptorum, Robyn finds herself catapulted headfirst into an extraordinary adventure – with more excitement than she could possibly have imagined. Be careful what you wish for…

This book is out tomorrow so add to your Goodreads list and buy from your favourite retailer

Author

Paula Harrison is a best-selling children’s author, with worldwide sales of over one million copies. Her books include The Rescue Princesses series. She wanted to be a writer from a young age but spent many happy years being a primary school teacher first.

Website: http://paulaharrison.jimdo.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/P_Harrison99

What I Thought

I would describe this as The Mortal Instruments for the younger reader – all the training, but not the romance (friendship instead). The storyline is very much a chosen one situation but this time our heroine isn’t alone in her discovery of a new world filled with monsters. I would say it took me a little while to get into this but once vampires were introduced the drama increased and I whipped through the rest of the tale, and was left hoping that there is more to come.

If you like the cover art – and what’s not to like – you will want to grab a hardcopy of this book because each chapter starts with a superb illustration by Renée Kurilla, and the book finishes with a mini monster compendium of all the weird creatures Robyn and her friends face.

The use of chapter titles had me in two minds, on one hand they are quite ‘telly’ giving you a heads up about what is to come and on the other I’d say they were almost like the summary headings a ten year old might put in a diary. I think younger readers will be fine with them though.

I loved all the main children characters from fiesty Robyn, her sweet younger sister Annie and her recorder!!!, Robyn’s best friend, dyslexic inventor, Aiden and bookish Nora. The children really do lead this with a few adult characters around to show them the way. They also learn to be very very careful of what you wish for – especially where sweets are involved.

There are plenty of surprises and some excellent scope for a longer series. I’d recommend this to readers that love middle grade and that enjoy urban supernatural fantasies where a hidden world exists alongside our own.

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