Blade: Mixing It by Tim Bowler

Blade: Mixing It by Tim Bowler
Buy Blade: Mixing It by Tim Bowler at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Teens
Reviewer: Jill Murphy
Summary: At last! The reveal begins in this utterly compelling series about Blade, a teen runaway who has unparalleled knife skills and a mysterious past. Nobody in children's writing is producing anything like this series. It's electrifying and it shouldn't be missed.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 176	Date: January 2010
Publisher: OUP
ISBN: 0192755994
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We last saw Blade back in the Beast - the city where it all began. In a last ditch attempt to rescue Jaz, the little girl with whom he's made a genuine connection, he's worked the biggest scam of his life and he's risked taking up the knife again. He's also put himself back into the firing line of his greatest enemy, the Hawk. And he's had to make contact with the police. Everything is closing in. But Blade doesn't just have a hostage, he also has experience, skill, knowledge and a willingness to risk everything...

We don't usually review the sixth book in a series, however good it is. We think - well, we hope! - that we'll have given you a good enough overall flavour already, it's difficult not to repeat ourselves, and we just don't have time to read everything. But I make an exception for Tim Bowler's Blade series. There's absolutely nothing like it out there anywhere and it really is barnstormingly good.

Blade is fourteen. He's a runaway. He has a terrifying skill with a knife and we know that he has killed. He tells his story in the second person as a stream of consciousness narrative to someone called Bigeyes. He's colloquial. He assumes you'll know what he's talking about and if you don't, that's tough cookies. Grinks, porkers, gobbos, dronks, muffins, trolls, dunnies - you gotta be cute enough to pick up the lingo or you'll simply get left behind. No matter how hard Blade tries to escape his past, he just can't. And we don't know anything about his past other than the little he lets on, which is no more than he has to. Each short episode is electrifying and each one draws back the curtain just a little more. The main reveal in Mixing It is absolutely shocking and I honestly think I actually gasped.

Nobody in children's writing is producing anything like this series. It's vivid and immediate and it's easy to read. But it has complicated plotting and challenging ideas and a brilliantly fresh perspective that is completely democratic and open to all.

I'm utterly addicted. There's more to come, and I simply can't wait.

My thanks to the good people at OUP for sending the book.

It's so difficult to know where to send readers next. First, they should read every other book in this series. They might also enjoy Sugarcoated by Catherine Forde.

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You can read more book reviews or buy Blade: Mixing It by Tim Bowler at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
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