Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
Piccadilly Press (2016), 304 pages
Description
"When Annabel's mother abruptly leaves her with her two mysterious aunts, she is thrust into a magical side of Victorian London she never knew existed and discovers that she is the key to saving it from an evil wizard bent on destroying all good magic"--
User reviews
LibraryThing member foggidawn
Things Annabel Grey wants:
-A pair of emerald green ice skates
-A pink sprigged muslin day dress
-Her mother to come back and take care of her
Things Annabel Grey does not want:
-A broomstick
-Magical powers
-A quest to save all of London from an evil wizard
Needless to say, Annabel is not going to get
This is a lovely story. The interactions between the characters are simply perfect, the plot moves on apace, and the writing is enchanting. I very much enjoyed this book, and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good fantasy of manners or well-written juvenile fiction.
-A pair of emerald green ice skates
-A pink sprigged muslin day dress
-Her mother to come back and take care of her
Things Annabel Grey does not want:
-A broomstick
-Magical powers
-A quest to save all of London from an evil wizard
Needless to say, Annabel is not going to get
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much of what she wants, and she is going to get a great deal of what she doesn't want. Despite her proper upbringing, Annabel has magic in her veins, and her mother has sent her to live with her two great-aunts in order to learn witchcraft. Unfortunately for Annabel, she arrives on the eve of a crisis, when Mr. Angel, a practitioner of black magic, has perfected a machine that will allow him to raise an army of shadowlings and take over the world. The only thing that can stop him is the White Wand, also known as the Moreover Wand, which lies somewhere beneath London. Only the youngest member of the Good and Benevolent Magical Society can retrieve the wand -- and Annabel is the youngest member. Accompanied by a peculiar and wild girl named Kitty, Annabel must travel along an underground river, through the Singing Gate and into the Troll Kingdom, across the Lake of Tears and past the great Wyrm . . . and she must do so before moonrise, or Mr. Angel wins!This is a lovely story. The interactions between the characters are simply perfect, the plot moves on apace, and the writing is enchanting. I very much enjoyed this book, and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good fantasy of manners or well-written juvenile fiction.
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LibraryThing member ashleytylerjohn
Oh, so frustrating! It began with some promise, but never developed into anything remotely engaging.
1. The main plot thrust is a journey through a magical realm, the least interesting magical realm yet set down in fiction--the lack of description is palpable, as if the author expected each
2. The main character is the main character for no particular reason, has become the chosen one because she's the youngest, and yet none of the elder magic users in the story had thought to cultivate her ahead of time? And she's generally unlikable, except when she improves for no apparent reason. (One waits for a character-testing moment, a sudden realisation, a propulsive feeling, but no).
3. I kept waiting for a subsidiary character, who seemed the most interesting person in these pages, to turn out to be the true hero (she could be sort of a Sam Gamgee type) but no, she got worse and worse as the story went out.
4. Don't get me started about how draggy and uninvolving the large middle was. From descent into the world below right through to meeting the trolls, it's eminently skipable.
5. Constant cutting back to the one-dimensional dull bad guy, doing the same thing and thinking the same thoughts as last time, as if Ed Wood had only managed to get a few shots of Bela Lugosi before his death and was forced to reuse them over and over. And he's bad because he's bad, so there's that.
6. No surprises ever. If it's foretold that the Cup of Pure Wonderfulness will cause Evil to melt, then the Cup of Pure Wonderfulness will cause Evil to melt, yawn. No twists, no turns, nothing, as if intentionally written for people who are a bit nervous about, you know, plot.
I don't get why there was a need for this book (i.e. why it was accepted for publication).
Grammar seemed correct, so not 1 star (that's reserved for exceptional poor writing, not simply unexceptional, dull texts).
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
1. The main plot thrust is a journey through a magical realm, the least interesting magical realm yet set down in fiction--the lack of description is palpable, as if the author expected each
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location to be announced via full-colour double-page spread (which never materialized) and didn't want to compete with the image. There's a lake, for instance, and apparently it's astonishing, but all we as readers get is it's dark and hard to see the other side of. Unlike the rich sense of journey that one gets as early as The Hobbit, this story goes nowhere, other than from one uninvolving place to the next.2. The main character is the main character for no particular reason, has become the chosen one because she's the youngest, and yet none of the elder magic users in the story had thought to cultivate her ahead of time? And she's generally unlikable, except when she improves for no apparent reason. (One waits for a character-testing moment, a sudden realisation, a propulsive feeling, but no).
3. I kept waiting for a subsidiary character, who seemed the most interesting person in these pages, to turn out to be the true hero (she could be sort of a Sam Gamgee type) but no, she got worse and worse as the story went out.
4. Don't get me started about how draggy and uninvolving the large middle was. From descent into the world below right through to meeting the trolls, it's eminently skipable.
5. Constant cutting back to the one-dimensional dull bad guy, doing the same thing and thinking the same thoughts as last time, as if Ed Wood had only managed to get a few shots of Bela Lugosi before his death and was forced to reuse them over and over. And he's bad because he's bad, so there's that.
6. No surprises ever. If it's foretold that the Cup of Pure Wonderfulness will cause Evil to melt, then the Cup of Pure Wonderfulness will cause Evil to melt, yawn. No twists, no turns, nothing, as if intentionally written for people who are a bit nervous about, you know, plot.
I don't get why there was a need for this book (i.e. why it was accepted for publication).
Grammar seemed correct, so not 1 star (that's reserved for exceptional poor writing, not simply unexceptional, dull texts).
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
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Awards
CBCA Book of the Year (Shortlist — Younger Readers — 2017)
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
304 p.; 8.03 inches
ISBN
1848125747 / 9781848125742
Similar in this library
DDC/MDS
| 823.92 |