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The Miraculous Sweetmakers: The Frost Fair by Natasha Hastings – The Write Reads Ultimate Blog Tour Book Review
About the Book
An amazing and captivating, curl-up-on-the-sofa debut about a magical frost fair and the lasting power of friendship.
It’s a cold winter during the Great Frost of 1683. Thomasina and Anne are the best of friends, one running her father’s sweet shop and the other the apprentice at the family apothecary – together they sell their goods on the frozen River Thames. When a family tragedy turns Thomasina’s world upside down, she is drawn to a mysterious conjuror and the enchanted frost fair.
But soon the world of Father Winter threatens to claim everything she holds dear. Will they be able to solve the magical mysteries that surround them . . . ?
About the Author
Natasha Hastings started developing The Miraculous Sweetmakers: The Frost Fair while studying history at Cambridge University, where she focused on gender and mental illness. While exploring these topics, she became determined to have the lives of working women, as well as their experiences of mental illness in this period, form the heartbeat of her debut book, The Frost Fair.
What I Thought
This reminds me of dark autumn Sunday evenings watching the BBC adaptations of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and The Box of Delights with my family.
The wintery setting is reminiscent of both of those tales too and there’s dark and spooky vibes right from the shocking end of the first chapter.
Thomasina is an appealing protagonist, her drive and ambition contrasted by the guilt and grief she carries. When she is made a miraculous offer we can see why she grasps at it.
Her friendships give her hope, and the story does really get quite bleak so it’s good that she has Henry, Anne, and their business idea, to cling to.
There was a very touching scene with the parsnip seller that made you root (lol) for Thomasina even more.
With discussions of female madness/‘hysteria’, representation of asthma and exploration of the multitudes of ways people deal with grief this is not a light middle grade but it is magical. Both the Frost Fair and the Other Frost Fair are exquisitely drawn and I would love to see this come to laugh as a Sunday BBC family series one day.
Thanks to TheWriteReads and the publisher for the eARC for the purposes of an honest review. Check out the hashtags to see what everyone else on the blog tour thought. #TheMiraculousSweetmakers #TheFrostFair
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The Boy Lost in the Maze by Joseph Coelho – Blog Tour Book Review
About the Book
In his new verse novel, Joseph Coelho brilliantly blends Greek myth with a 21st century quest. In Ancient Greece Theseus makes a dangerous and courageous journey to find his father, finally meeting the Minotaur in the Labyrinth. While Theo, a modern-day teenage boy, finds himself on a maze-like quest to find his own father. Each story tells of a boy becoming a man and discovering what true manhood really means,
The path to self-discovery takes Theo through ‘those thin spaces where myth, magic and reality combine’. Doubts, difficulties and dangers must be faced as Theo discovers the man he will become.
About the Author
Joseph Coelho became the Waterstones Children’s Laureate in 2022. His debut poetry collection Werewolf Club Rules, published by Frances Lincoln, won the CLiPPA Poetry Award in 2015. He has written plays for young people for the Theatre Royal York, Pied Piper, Polka and The Unicorn Theatres. As well as poetry and plays, Joseph also writes picture books including Luna Loves Library Day (Andersen Press) and non-fiction books including How To Write Poems (Bloomsbury). All of his work has poetry and an element of performance at its heart making his festival and school sessions dynamic occasions. Joseph is a staunch ambassador for Britain’s straitened public libraries. He lives in Kent.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/JosephACoelho
Laureate Twitter: http://twitter.com/uklaureate
Instagram: http://instagram.com/josephcoelhoauthor
About the Illustrator
Kate Milner studied illustration at Central St Martin’s before completing an MA in Children’s Book Illustration at Angela Ruskin University. Kate won the V&A Illustration Award 2016 and the Klaus Flugge Prize 2018 for My name is not Refugee. Her book It’s a No-Money Day (2019, Barrington Stoke) was shortlisted for the Greenaway Medal.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/abagforkatie
Instagram: http://instagram.com/thatpaperhat
What I Thought
This is such an ambitious book, a novel in verse, parallel stories of modern day and myth, an exploration into manhood and fatherhood and even at points a choose your own adventure. But coming from the Children’s Laureate what would we expect other than for it to be handled successfully.
I visually read this but I have previously listened to other verse novels (e.g. One by Sarah Crossan) and I think if you are reluctant to read poetry I’d definitely recommend audio or reading along in parallel.
We have three characters we are following. Theo – our modern day character who is the protagonist and voice of the novel, Theseus, and the Minotaur (although I have to admit wanting more from this third character – ooh a sequel focusing on what he did next would be fab).
I thought it was cleverly done that the trials Theseus faced on making his way back to his father are echoed in Theo’s similar journey. The parallel of mythology and modern day was great and how the modern day ‘learning’ was represented was excellent.
One of my favourite poems of all time is Digging by Seamus Heaney and some of the poetry focusing on writing and use of words over swords and use of violence reminded me of this.
‘So, I muscle into my words
grab at them with toothed hands
forming a sentence to stop the battering…’
The book gets a little gruesome at times and one big complaint I have is not having the poem talking about Sestinas not, in actual fact, being a Sestina 😂.
The illustrations throughout were beautiful and I particularly liked the concluding image.
The Boy Lost in the Maze sadly won’t be a book for everyone – (because people will be put off by the fact it’s told as poems) but I really hope it gets a broader audience and helps foster our next generation of poets, and helps people see that poetry can be used in different ways.
Thanks to Blue at Kaleidoscopic Tours and the publisher for the gifted copy for the purposes of an honest review. Do check out the rest of the tour.
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The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston – Blog Tour Book Review
About the Book
Florence Day is a ghost-writer with one big problem. She’s supposed to be penning swoon-worthy novels for a famous romance author but, after a bad break-up, Florence no longer believes in love. And when her strict (but undeniably hot) new editor, Benji Andor, won’t give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye.
Although when tragedy strikes and Florence has to head home, the last thing she expects to see is a ghost at her front door. Not just any ghost, however, but the stern form of her still very hot – yet now unquestionably dead – new editor.
As sparks start to fly between them, Florence tells herself she can’t be falling for a ghost – even an infuriatingly sexy one.
But can Benji help Florence to realise love isn’t dead, after all?
About the Author
Ashley Poston writes stories about love and friendship and ever after a. A native to South Carolina, she now lives in a small grey house with her sassy cat and too many books. You can find her on the internet, somewhere, watching cat videos and reading fan fiction.
AshPoston.com
Facebook and Instagram- HeyAshPoston
Twitter – AshPoston
What I Thought
Well. What can I say. Ashley Poston has done it again – I’m not sure I was ready for a book with a squatty potty reference 😂 – but I’m here for it (it’s good for the digestion!).
I am a huge fan of Ashley’s YA Geekerella series which uses fandom as a backdrop to her romances. Now with this foray into adult fiction we have publishing as our backdrop but with some additional supernatural goings on. This makes this a perfect spooky season read.
This is the second book recently I’ve read where I can reference Ghost Whisperer as a comparison (see my review of middle grade book The Whisperling) and I’m not at all mad about that – what with it being one of my favourite shows.
Florence Day has grown up around death – literally. Her family run Days Gone Funeral Home (excellent name) and both her father and her see dead people walking around like regular people! Hounded out of her small town because of this gift, Florence headed to the big smoke and tried to turn her love of writing smutty X-Files fan fic into a career in romance fiction. After her first novel doesn’t take off in quite the way she’d hoped she ends up ghostwriting (lol) for a hugely successful romance writer. We meet her as the last book on that contract is due – but the thing is she has writer’s block. How can you write romance when you’ve had your heart smashed?
Florence’s ex is a despicable piece of work who deserves much worse than he gets in my opinion. Seriously he makes my blood boil.
Pulled back to her home after a family tragedy she finds a ghost on the doorstep of her family home but this ghost is very out of place and unwelcome. After all he didn’t give her an extension on her novel! Rude. It’s her very hot editor Benji Andor who on first meeting him the words “climb him” were screamed by her inner voice – although sadly that turns out not to be possible when you can’t touch a ghost. But is it possible for the spirit of romance to be reignited? No spoilers here but I was satisfied with the journey Florence went on.
I will say that this was perhaps a slightly slower start than we’ve grown used to but the payoff makes it worth it and Ashley’s writing is easy to read and comforting.
This mixes the best echoes of Christmas Hallmark movies (but with Halloween vibes in April – and not Christmas), Sweet Home Alabama and A million funerals and a wedding! I loved this exploration of complex family relationships, small town gossip and an incorporeal romance. Poston brings her humour and pop culture references naturally across into the adult sphere where she can be a little more spicy (although only in small doses – we don’t actually get any of the X-Files smut on the page! More’s the pity).
The small town of Mairmont with its doggie Mayor (this needs to become a thing – the world would be so much kinder) becomes a character itself and I fell in love with it too. I loved the incidental non binary and queer characters because there was no negative focus on this – they just were and this is what the world should be.
If the Reader Discussion questions are anything to go by keep your fingers crossed for a sequel and more Mairmont. I’d equally be happy with other books following some of our side characters.
Although grief is a big theme in this story the book itself is hopeful and not macabre and focuses very much on death as part of life. In the author’s note Ashley Poston talks about her fear of death which I very much share – so to write such a book must have been a therapy session as much as it was reading it.
A huge thank you to Ashley for this piece of magic and to HQ Stories for the gifted copy for the purposes of an honest review. Do check out what everyone else on the tour thought.
kirstyes 