Author: @f33lthesun

Retired and reading.

Skyfleet: March of the Mutabugs by Victoria Williamson

On By @f33lthesunIn Upper KS2+Leave a comment
Skyfleet: March of the Mutabugs by Victoria Williamson
Cover by James Brown

Blurb

When the skies turn deadly, a young heroine must rise from the ashes…

Twelve-year-old Amberley Jain has faced incredible challenges since the crash that took her parents and paralysed her legs. Now, with her best friend Ricardo Lopez about to be sent away and a swarm of mutated insects closing in on the Skyfleet base, the stakes have never been higher. Something monstrous is driving the mutabugs north from the contaminated meteor site known as the Cauldron, and the only plane capable of stopping it – the Firehawk – lies in pieces in the hangar.

Determined to honour her parents’ legacy, Amberley hatches a daring plan. With Ricardo’s help, they stow away on a supply train, trading his most treasured possession for the parts needed to repair the Firehawk. After secret test flights, the legendary jet is ready for action. Now, Amberley and Ricardo must confront the deadly swarm and save their home, discovering their inner strength and the true meaning of friendship along the way.

Skyfleet: March of the Mutabugs is a thrilling tale of adventure and resilience, perfect for middle-grade readers.

Review

Victoria Williamson has done it again. She has built a believable, futuristic, dystopian world where mutabugs are taking over, causing chaos and harm. Added to that, new giant mutabugs hatching from a crater caused by a meteor that are threatening all the villages and crops. Giant spiders, immune to the majority of weapons the bedraggled Skyfleet can throw at them, are snatching villagers and cocooning them.

The only craft with strong enough fire power is out of action and irreparable (according to the adults). However, Amberley and her best friend Ric know better. With a little help from renegade pilot Screwball (I couldn’t help thinking of Wacky Races whenever she and Bandit were involved) and her pet wombat, they collect the scraps needed to repair the Firehawk.

Showing determination and skill, they secretly rebuild and test the jet, but end up involved in more than they bargained for when they get caught up in a mutabug attack that could finish everyone off.

Themes of loss, disability, friendship, resilience and courage come through strongly in this adventurous sci-fi dystopian thriller. Highly recommended.

Thanks to @The_WriteReads and Tiny Tree (publisher) for the ARC to read and review for this blog tour.

The Dame on the Dock by Louise Gorday – A BBNYA Spotlight Post

On By @f33lthesunIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

The Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it to the semi-finals with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title.

Blurb

In 1922, private investigator Tatum “Shoe” Shoemaker—fresh off a sensational case and a Pulitzer Prize nomination—finds himself working in a bad section of Washington, D.C., and drowning in debt. So when a well-heeled solicitor offers a substantial retainer to solve the brutal murder of a wealthy industrialist’s daughter, he jumps at the chance.

Against the advice of his girlfriend-cum-wise-cracking assistant, Shoe decides to risk potential retribution from elected officials and return to Nevis, Maryland—the bayside town that ran him out six months earlier for exposing corruption in government. But his hope of solving his new case is immediately imperiled when he learns archrival Rudy Becker has been retained on the same case. Clues pile up without connection as neither investigator fully trusts the other, and each withholds information vital to solving the case. Soon, both investigators find themselves prime suspects in the murder, and they must either learn to work together with complete trust, or one of them will certainly go down for the murder.

Book Details

Length: 273 Pages

Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery

Age Category: Adult

Date Published: August 16, 2021 

Amazon Link: https://a.co/d/jdztoZ6 (Canada) https://a.co/d/6PkLNEZ (USA) https://amzn.eu/d/9GWGdnm (UK)

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58897030-the-dame-on-the-dock

The Story Graph Link: https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/2e38997b-74fb-49a0-bce4-77d79b4b0138 

Or buy it from your local independent bookshop, which is my preferred option.

Author Bio

Louise Gorday is an award-nominated author of eleven novels, many of which center on life in a small fictional Southern Maryland town based loosely on Chesapeake Beach, Maryland. Her plots range from historical fiction describing the founding of the amusement park in the early 1900s and a private investigator in the 1920s to the modern-day fantasy escapade of an immortal battling Pandora’s grandson for the dark muse of Edgar Allan Poe. Whether it be Solomons Island, Upper Marlboro, or a trip down a notched road, she loves to include local places and Maryland customs in her stories. Louise lives in Dunkirk, Maryland, with a very patient husband, two Shelties, and Emmett, an African Grey who sings the Sponge Bob Square Pants theme song.

Louise’s novel Edgar and the Flyboys was recently a finalist in Poe Baltimore’s 2022 Saturday “Visiter” Awards, which honor artistic works that continue Edgar Allan Poe’s legacy.

Website and to subscribe to Louise’s mailing list: https://www.louisegordaybooks.com/ 

About BBNYA

BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 16 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

Sunset by Arshad Ahsanuddin – A BBNYA Spotlight Post

On By @f33lthesunIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

The Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it to the semi-finals with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title.

Blurb

An unlikely savior emerges to prevent the advent of mass destruction and genocide descending on the world…

By Day

Los Angeles, 2040. When the terrorist known as Medusa threatens to kill millions with a stolen nuclear bomb, Nick Jameson makes a fateful decision. He reveals himself on global television as a Daywalker – a vampire with a soul. To save Los Angeles, Nick exposes not only his own gifts but three separate cultures based on millennia-old magic.

By Night

The three metahuman races exist in careful balance, working to maintain a fragile peace. Nick and his fellow Daywalkers successfully master their natural bloodlust. The Sentinels, armed with both magic and steel, repress their warlike instincts. And even some Nightwalkers, normally their natural enemies, have deserted the Court of Shadows to join the triple alliance. Nick Jameson is deeply involved with two such Nightwalkers – handsome Lorcan and powerful Rory. Both men love Nick. But neither can protect the new Ambassador to Humanity from the events he has set in motion.

By the Sword

Jeremy Harkness was lured into Medusa’s service under false pretenses. A loner with no one and nothing to cling to, he was willing to die for his cause. But the night Medusa tried to obliterate Los Angeles, Jeremy met Nick Jameson, triggering the onset of his own psychic gifts. For Jeremy is the third race of metahuman, a Sentinel, born to kill the Nightwalkers with no quarter asked or offered. And neither Medusa nor the Court of Shadows will settle for peace when they can make war.

Betrayal and treachery lurk around every corner on the road to coexistence, and at every turn, Nick must question who to trust among his metahuman allies, friends, and lovers—before their civilization is plunged into the depths of darkness and bloodshed. With millennia-old magic, emerging romance, and ever-shifting allegiances, this inventive series unveils a scintillating, homoerotic world of Nightwalkers, Daywalkers, Sentinels, and Humans, who battle for world dominance in the not-too-distant future.

Book Details

Length: 504 Pages

Genre: Fantasy, Science Fiction

Age Category: Adult

Date Published: February 1, 2011

Amazon Link: https://a.co/d/3nZLnkQ (Canada) https://a.co/d/gTmg6fT (USA) https://amzn.eu/d/7MO5WfI (UK)

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16154442-sunset

The Story Graph Link: https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/d9cb555a-9786-42ad-8e35-4c245450eef6 

Or buy it from your local independent bookshop, which is my preferred option.

Author Bio

Arshad Ahsanuddin is a hematopathologist living in Canada. The irony of a physician who specializes in blood disease writing a series of vampire novels has been remarked upon by roughly every person he has ever met. This is his first novel. If you enjoyed this book, then feel free to visit his website at http://www.pactarcanum.com and leave him some feedback.

About BBNYA

BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 16 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

Kavithri by Aman J Bedi

On By @f33lthesunIn AdultLeave a comment
Cover by Giby Joseph

Blurb

Kavi is a Taemu. Her people, once feared berserkers and the spearhead of a continent-spanning invasion, are the dregs of Raayan society. Their spirits crushed. Their swords broken. Their history erased.

But Kavi has a dream and a plan. She will do whatever it takes to earn a place at the secretive mage academy, face the Jinn within its walls, and gain the power to rise above her station and drag her people out of the darkness.

Except power and knowledge come at a cost, and the world no longer needs a Taemu who can fight. So they will break her. Beat her down to her knees. And make her bleed.

But if blood is what they want, Kavi will give them blood. She will give them violence. She will show them a berserker’s fury.

And she will make them remember her name.

Review

This is a debut dark fantasy novel that pulls no punches. The world building is assured and confident, the characters full and vibrant and the story deep and intriguing. It is also gruesome in parts.

There is a lot of back story, both for the main characters and the politics of the world, but this is divulged by different characters at various points in the story, so no long info dumps.

Kavi is an orphan, a Taemu (the lowest of the low in this world’s caste system) and has no one. She doesn’t even trust her own memory about where she comes from and what happened to her family. A chance encounter when she helps someone unexpectedly opens up her world in a way she could not have hoped for, despite it being her goal.

Whilst feeling Kavi’s disappointment, I was pleased that the “expected” ending to the first set of tests in her attempt to become a Mage did not happen and this story took Kavi in a less anticipated direction towards her ultimate goal.

On the way, Kavi meets a wide variety of people who bring their own baggage and history, linked in both good and bad ways to Kavi’s. There are things she will find out that will not make sense to her and will shake her beliefs and what she thought she knew.

Kavi is a loner, an underdog and an outcast who has been treated abominably by society but she is determined in her search for her family. The learned helplessness and capitulation that the Taemu employ to survive is something else she needs to get her head around if she is to make any progress towards becoming a Mage, so her struggle is mental and physical. Years of being kind and not hurting anyone, the fear that if she does she will let out the inner berserker of her ancestors and not get able to control it is to the forefront of her mind and the biggest hurdle to her success.

Warning: The final third of the story is extremely violent and brutal. There are gladiator style confrontations, one on one combats, battles and a gruesome torture. If you liked Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy, then you will like this. I am now waiting excitedly for the next part of Kavi’s story.

Thanks to the publishers, Gollancz, and @The_WriteReads for the ARC for me to read and review.

About the Author

Aman was born in Mysore, India. He grew up in Vizag, studied in Bangalore, lived in Bangkok,  completed a PhD in experimental psychology at the University of Canterbury, and has settled (for now) in Melbourne, Australia. His writing draws from modern Indian history and is influenced by writers and artists like David Gemmell, Brandon Sanderson, Takehiko Inoue, and Kentaro Miura.

Silverskin by Caitee Cooper – A BBNYA Spotlight Post

On By @f33lthesunIn AdultLeave a comment

The Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it to the semi-finals with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title.

Blurb

When Ellie Forth sets out to have a great Alaskan adventure with her remaining family members, she’s got something to prove—and not to them, but to herself. Four years after the unexpected death of her mother and sister, she’s ready to re-embrace her adventurous side.

Oliver Cole’s life, on the other hand, is very simple: go to work, catch fish, come home, and stash every penny earned into his bank account so he can afford to pay for college. But his life is turned upside down when Ellie and her brother—two nearly-forgotten acquaintances from his childhood—burst back into his life.

After a horrific encounter with the supernatural deep in the Kenai Peninsula, Ellie and Oliver must team up to discover the truth about what happened in Portlock, and how to fight a rising tide of evil that has the power to envelop not just Alaska, but the entire world.

A stunning debut, Silverskin is a blend of fantasy, suspense, and the supernatural. With Hallmark-meets-Hitchcock vibes, the adventure and slow-burn romance in this book will keep you up turning pages well past your bedtime. It features strong female and male leads, low-spice friends-to-lovers romance, found family themes, and more.

Book Details

Length: 445 Pages

Genre: Fantasy, Contemporary Fiction, Romance

Age Category: Adult

Date Published: September 15, 2023

Amazon Link: https://a.co/d/cbPROqh (Canada) https://a.co/d/fki1iTn (USA) https://amzn.eu/d/5eOvX4O (UK)

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/197148377-silverskin

The Story Graph Link: https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/e700280b-1407-4195-a47a-7583f49601d9 

Or buy it from your local independent bookshop, which is my preferred option.

Author Bio

Caitee Cooper grew up in Laramie, Wyoming, where she enjoyed all things outdoorsy, musical, and bookish. She went to college at the University of Wyoming, where she earned a B.S in Psychology, and met her husband, Dallin. They went on to start several businesses and have many adventures. Caitee currently lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming with her husband, their two boys, and two half-feral barn cats.

Caitee can be found on Instagram @caiteecooper, on TikTok @caiteethewriter, on Facebook (Caitee Cooper – Author) and infrequently on X (@caitee_cooper).

About BBNYA

BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 16 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

Orphan Planet by Rex Burke – A Spotlight Post

On By @f33lthesunIn AdultLeave a comment

The Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it to the semi-finals with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title.

Blurb

Book 1 in the ‘Odyssey Earth’ series – a feelgood SciFi space adventure .

With Earth in crisis, humans are travelling deep into space. But humanity’s future just took a wrong turn.

A seventeen-year colony-ship voyage – a straight shot to a new planet. Handpicked, single-minded crew, and a thousand settlers in hypersleep. No children, no families, no fuss.

That was the plan, anyway.

Captain Juno Washington commands a ship of loners and oddballs. The teenagers of the Odyssey Earth didn’t ask to be born, and face an uncertain future. And Jordan Booth really didn’t want to be woken up early.

After an unexpected change of course, relationships are tested like never before. If they listen to advice, pull together and stop squabbling, they might just make it.

Yeah, right. Good luck with that.

Book Details

Length: 332 Pages

Genre: Science Fiction, Mystery

Age Category: Adult

Date Published: December 4, 2023

Amazon Link: https://a.co/d/ips4zdQ (Canada) https://a.co/d/2iiHHzn (USA) https://amzn.eu/d/2TK65B6 (UK)

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123022915-orphan-planet

The Story Graph Link: https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/b60d2aa8-551b-45a6-b09f-f588f78339be

Or buy it from your local independent bookshop, which is my preferred option.

Author Bio

Rex Burke is a SciFi writer based in North Yorkshire, UK.

When he was young, he read every one of those yellow-jacketed Victor Gollancz hardbacks in his local library. That feeling of out-of-this-world amazement never left him – and keeps him company as he writes his own SciFi adventures.

When he’s not writing, he travels – one way or another, he’ll get to the stars, even if it’s just as stardust when his own story is done.

For a fantastic FREE prequel to the Odyssey Earth series (‘First Date’) not available anywhere else, sign up to his newsletter at http://subscribepage.io/GPiihl 

About BBNYA

BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 16 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

Terra Electrica by Antonia Maxwell – A Spotlight Post

On By @f33lthesunIn Upper Key Stage 2+Leave a comment
Cover by Jet Purdie

I am shining a spotlight on the fabulous Terra Electrica by Antonia Maxwell, to celebrate its publication in the US on October 22 2024.

I really enjoyed reading this when it came out earlier this year in the UK and reviewed it here.

Book Info

Genre: Dystopian, Science & Nature, Environment

Age Category: Middle Grade

Page Count: 272 Pages  

Publication Date: July 4, 2024 (October 22nd US)

Publisher: Neem Tree Press

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/204929195-terra-electrica 

StoryGraph: https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/19fb6fe4-15c8-4cc3-a151-35e6fb0126b1

Amazon: https://a.co/d/0ekqkIpP (USA) https://amzn.eu/d/0dUDASJ3 (UK) https://a.co/d/0euPP4sr (Canada)

Or buy it from your local independent bookshop, which is my preferred option.

Blurb

Book 1 in an action-packed dystopian adventure series set in the near-future post-melt Arctic.

The last ice cap has melted, and the world is on the brink of collapse. A deadly force—Terra Electrica—has been unleashed. It feeds on electricity. It is infecting civilization.

In this chaotic, rapidly changing reality, 12-year-old Mani has lost her family and community to the Terra Electrica. Armed only with some ancestral wisdom and a powerful, ancient wooden mask she was never meant to inherit so soon, she suddenly finds herself responsible for the fate of the world.

Can Mani piece everything together and harness her newfound powers in time to save humanity?

About the Author

Antonia Maxwell is a writer and editor based in North Essex and Cambridge, UK. With a  degree in Modern Languages and a long-standing career as a book editor, she has a lifelong curiosity for language and words, and a growing fascination in the power of story – the way it shapes our lives and frames our experience.

Please look out for other spotlights and reviews on this tour to celebrate the US release of Terra Electrica.

Inked by Rachel Rener – A BBNYA Spotlight Post

On By @f33lthesunIn AdultLeave a comment

The Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it to the semi-finals with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title.

Blurb

When Zayn, your smoking hot boss, tells you never to touch the cache of deluxe tattoo ink locked away in his office, you listen to him… until the day you run out of your own ink, your squirming client is on the verge of peeing his pants, and your boss is nowhere to be found. Desperate times call for desperate measures, right?

I fully expected Zayn to yell at me when he returned to the shop. What I didn’t expect was the fresh cobra tattoo on my client’s butt magically springing to life. Or the interdimensional filing cabinet hiding in the back of Zayn’s office. And, oh, did I mention that my gorgeous, magic-ink-hoarding boss is actually an incubus?

Now – through (mostly) no fault of my own – we have to venture into a strange and distant land where a never-ending list of lethal flora, fauna, and fae await us. When you add in my Jewish mother’s string of poorly-timed, hysterical phone calls, there is one thing I’m grateful for: there’s no cell service in the fae realm.

Book Details

Length: 346 Pages

Genre: Women’s Fiction, Fantasy

Age Category: New Adult

Date Published: March 15, 2022 

Amazon Link: https://a.co/d/iIaIYpM (Canada) https://a.co/d/fzrG56w (USA) https://amzn.eu/d/ad3vXyi (UK)

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59963160-inked

The Story Graph Link: https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/fcc1be5f-b036-443e-ad11-41eb3ee3cddd

Or buy it from your local independent bookshop, which is my preferred option.

Author Bio

Rachel Rener is an award-winning, #1 bestselling romantasy author who loves blurring the line between science and magic.

She graduated from the University of Colorado after focusing on Psychology and Neuroscience. Since then, she has lived on three continents and has traveled to nearly 50 countries.

When she’s not writing or reading, Rachel enjoys art of all kinds, riding her motorcycle, going to rock shows (both musical and mineralogical), Vulcanology (the lava kind as well as the pointy-eared variety), and voicing Tana the Tiefling on the popular DnD podcast, Of Dice and Friends.

She lives in Colorado with her husband and a feisty umbrella cockatoo named Terrance (a.k.a “Jungle Chicken”) that hangs out on her shoulder as she writes – whether invited or not.

Find out more about Rachel and her books at:

www.RachelRener.com 

@AuthorRachelRener across all socials

About BBNYA

BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 16 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

Hermit of Paradise by Kim Sanders

On By @f33lthesunIn Adult1 Comment

Blurb

Detective Auby Midnight is retired. Or so he imagines. Jaded and transformed by a long career of witnessing degeneracy, tragedy, and true evil, he reflects on the place that first nurtured him: Paradise Cove, Lake Texoma, and the rich, endearing memories of mischief, adventure, and friendship that shaped his childhood. That is, until the day a violent feud brought irrevocable trauma for his best friend, Sunny.

Now Sunny implores the wearied Auby to right the wrongs of the past and return to the case that has haunted him and his childhood friends for years. Older, wiser, and far more experienced, they set out to defeat the evil that stole their innocence and restore the magic of Paradise Cove.

Inspired by the author’s own life events as a sixth-generation Texan and a former member of the Dallas Police Department with decades of experience under his belt, Hermit of Paradise explores meaning, morality, and the fight to stay human in the face of a grim and complicated world.

Review

After reading the blurb, I had in my head how I thought this story would unfold…but I was wrong. Yes, there is some police procedure but as part of Auby’s backstory, rather than the main chunk of the tale, and that is no bad thing.

Overall, it is a story about Auby retiring from the police and finally facing up to what happened one summer when innocence was lost and a group of young teens is caught up in a feud between local family factions, underworld gambling, war veterans, and family ties that are either blood or bands of brothers.

There are a lot of characters to keep track of and the author does a superb job of creating fully formed characters and integrates their story arcs seamlessly.

I can get frustrated when information about the past is drip fed in a dual timeline narrative but in this case, Sanders does it pitch perfect. So much so, the sucker punch hits its target.

This story will sit with me for a long time to come.

Thanks to @The_WriteReads and Brown Books for the eARC to read and review for this blog tour.

Pax and the Forgotten Pincher by David Barker

On By @f33lthesunIn Upper KS2+Leave a comment
Cover by Bruno Oliveira Marini

This is the sequel to the excellent Pax and the Missing Head, which I read and reviewed here. I was happy to be asked by the publisher, Tiny Tree, to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Blurb

Pax has made it through the trials of his first year at Scholastic Parliament, but any hopes of a quieter second year are quickly dashed when he makes a shocking discovery in the school’s basement. A new student joins the school, acting suspiciously and muscling in on Pax’s friendship with Samuel. At least being reigning champions in the Parliamentary Polls allows Pax and his friends to explore the city at weekends. But drone raids and cyber-attacks disrupt life in New London while a paranoid mayor cracks down hard on terrorism.

Unwittingly, Pax helps an innocent man get captured. Driven by guilt, he seeks out the Underground resistance movement and is given a mission to steal some codes from the mayor. In the process, Pax uncovers the shocking truth about a new factory that threatens the lives of millions of people. He is torn between stopping this latest sinister plot and focusing on schoolwork to keep alive his dream of becoming an engineer. To achieve both, he’ll need help. But who can he trust in a city full of falsehoods? What sacrifices will he need to make? Find out in the latest instalment in the London Falling series.

Review

In the first instalment of the London Falling series, we left Pax having completed his first year at Scholastic Parliament, having been guided by its AI to apply and follow his dream of becoming an engineer who fixes and invents technology.

Now, in his second year, having scuppered the Mayor’s fiendish plans, he stumbles across yet another discrepancy that he thinks points to the mayor being up to absolutely no good again. However he is reluctant to confide in his friends as he doesn’t trust the new boy and one of his close friends has also changed to another school house.

David Barker has continued to develop the superb Old London world building, bringing in more of London Town this time.

Filled with tension and worry, the action is almost non stop and Pax is back to planning escapades, using Roacher and Bee-Bop, his own robot creations, in order to uncover the Mayor’s dastardly schemes to control everyone. Again, themes of friendship, loyalty, betrayal, dictatorship and trust feature heavily.

This second book builds confidently on the first. The series is on an upward trajectory and I cannot wait for Pax’s third adventure.