Dream Magic by Joshua Khan

Dream Magic by Joshua Khan
Buy Dream Magic by Joshua Khan at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Confident Readers
Reviewer: Linda Lawlor
Summary: A spooky castle overrun by bats, ghosts and zombies – and those are the good guys! Super-scary jewel-spiders and trolls are attacking, yet somehow there's plenty of humour to lighten the daring exploits and death-defying feats of courage. A thoroughly satisfying read.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 336	Date: April 2017
Publisher: Scholastic
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 9781407172095
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It's great to welcome our old friends back in this, the second of their adventures, even though we know it means they'll be going through all sorts of terrors and dangers once more as they battle not one but two enemies bent on destroying Gehenna. Lady Lilith Shadow may be the sole heir to her country, but she's still just a girl and therefore expected to do nothing more useful than marry some feeble-witted prince to forge an alliance with a stronger kingdom. Her friend Thorn, on the other hand, is a peasant boy from a neighbouring country with a talent for getting into scrapes and an absolutely wonderful giant bat he uses to travel round on (when the bat's in the mood to be helpful, that is). Together they make a great team.

As a princess Lily is absolutely one-hundred-per-cent forbidden to ever do magic, which is strictly a boy thing, but defending her people is way more important than a piffling little law or two – obviously! Whenever she gets a free hour from the constant demands of her role (like settling disputes between families and their zombie relatives) she trains in secret with the ghost of her father to become a full magician. This, added to Thorn's duties as a lowly squire to the royal executioner (not as gruesome a job as it sounds), mean the two young people get little time to spend in each other's company. It is only when outlying farms are attacked that it becomes clear trolls are on the move and determined to destroy everything and everyone, and Lily and Thorn must come together to use their particular gifts again in the defence of all they hold dear. But are the trolls, frightening as they are, the real danger? Is there something worse going on behind the brutal raids?

It's such fun to have a series which turns so many of the clichés of books and films on their head. Gehenna may be sunless and dreary, and Castle Gloom definitely lives up to its name, but its inhabitants are, on the whole, as likeable and ordinary (in their way) as people elsewhere. Okay, Lily's pet puppy is dead, which is sad, but he hasn't quite grasped the fact and zooms around cheerfully chasing bones and balls he'll never be able to chew. And you might be advised not to read the scene where the servant zombies anxiously try to serve dinner (you can imagine how risky an enterprise that might be) just before your tea: you'll find yourself inspecting every spoonful for random fingers. There are some genuinely scary moments, and as nasty a villain as you could hope to meet (or, to be more precise, not meet) but the whole thing is so energetic and exciting, and the main characters so easy to identify with, that it shouldn't be a problem. Hmm . . . of course, there are some seriously horrid beasties, and then there's . . .oh well, just make sure you read it on a bright sunny day, preferably with a rolled-up newspaper near at hand. You'll be fine. Honest.

It isn't essential, but you'll gain a lot more from this book if you read about our heroes' backgrounds in the first book in the series, Shadow Magic. And if you fancy another tale of a brave young girl refusing to accept the restrictions society tries to impose on her, but in a vein which is more lighthearted and even happily silly at times, try [[The Very Nearly Honourable League of Pirates: Magic Marks the Spot by Caroline Carlson}}. Please share on: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

You can read more book reviews or buy Dream Magic by Joshua Khan at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Dream Magic by Joshua Khan at Amazon.com.

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