Review of A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping, by Sangu Mandanna

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping

by Sangu Mandanna
read by Samara MacLaren

Books on Tape, 2025. 9 hours, 53 minutes.
Review written February 23, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I think this audiobook was suggested to me after I finished Sarah Beth Durst’s latest. If so, the recommendation was spot-on. This is also a cozy fantasy story with all kinds of feel-good vibes.

At 15 years old, Sera Swan was one of the two most powerful witches in Britain. But she was an outsider because she wasn’t from a long-standing British magical family. So when she uses up her magic to bring her great-aunt back from death, instead of other witches helping her get it back, she’s put in exile from all magic society.

Fifteen years later, Sera is making do with only a tiny bit of magic. She’s running the inn with her great-aunt, protected by the spell she performed as a child – only allowing those who truly need the inn to find it. They’ve assembled a hodge-podge family of sorts – an overeager elderly lady, a young man who works at the Renaissance Fair and calls himself her knight, and Sera’s young cousin Theo who is learning the fundamentals of magic – and letting Sera read the more advanced texts he checks out. And then there’s Clemmie, the witch who turned herself into a fox when a curse backfired. She wants Sera to regain her power and restore her as well.

And now it looks like Sera may be able to restore her power. With the help of the powerful Restoration spell – and the handsome librarian who has shown up at the inn, needing a place for his young sister, who is a witch but is also autistic and doesn’t always follow the rules. But then there’s the matter of figuring out the ingredients of the spell.

This is a delightfully cozy story with a clear progression of tasks for Sera, but some setbacks and plot twists along the way. I found myself loving the assortment of characters at the inn – while hating the villain who is indeed despicable but powerful. I wish I could find my way to this magical inn, but enjoying through the book was perfect.

sangumandanna.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/witchs_guide_to_magical_innkeeping.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of The Magician of Tiger Castle, by Louis Sachar

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

The Magician of Tiger Castle

by Louis Sachar
read by Edoardo Ballerini

Books on Tape, 2025. 7 hours, 17 minutes.
Review written February 12, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Louis Sachar has written a book for adults!

Louis Sachar is the Newbery-winning author of Holes and the Wayside School books, both of which I read before I started writing Sonderbooks. (I do have a review up of his 2010 book, The Cardturner.) From those books, I already knew he’s especially good at intricate, clever plots – and yes, that’s a way this book shines as well.

By the time my hold came in on this audiobook, I’d forgotten it was for adults, and just saw it was a Louis Sachar book. So I was a bit surprised when the main character was a man in his forties. After said main character was surprisingly frank about some bodily functions (nothing crude, just surprising if you thought it was a children’s book) – I remembered it was his first novel for adults.

The book begins with Anatole sipping tea at a cafe in front of a castle that keeps a tiger in the moat. As he talks about what the tour guide is saying to a group, we begin to realize he knows a lot more about the castle than he should. And then he launches into the story of how the first tiger came to the castle in the 16th Century as a betrothal gift to the princess of Esquaveta (which was the small country the castle ruled then) in preparation for the wedding of the century.

Anatole was then the royal magician. He didn’t cast spells, but he was exceptionally skilled at mixing potions. As the wedding approached, Princess Tullia declared that she was not going to marry the prince of a neighboring country because she’d fallen in love with her tutor. The tutor was now in the dungeon, and the king tasked Anatole with making the princess go through with the marriage and saving Esquavita from the neighboring kingdom’s powerful army.

And that’s the story that follows. At first, Anatole simply plans to fulfill the king’s command. He’ll make a potion to make the two lovebirds forget all about each other. But he needs to get close to the prisoner in order to get a heartfelt tear for the potion – and that involves getting to know him. And things get much more complicated than they seem at first.

So this is a fantasy story – Anatole is very good at making potions, and we appreciate all the work and experimentation he puts into making it just right. This is no romantasy – but we do come to care about the princess and the prisoner, and there is definitely a romantic subplot – even if their love must first be thwarted. As I mentioned, this author is particularly good at plotting, and he had me intent on the story every step of the way.

Yes, adults who read and loved Holes as kids are going to love this, too. It’s a completely different story, but it does appeal to the same part of my brain that loves a tightly constructed plot with characters you can’t help but care about.

louissachar.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/magician_of_tiger_castle.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of Trans History, by Alex L. Combs & Andrew Eakett

Audiobooks, Graphic Novel, History, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

Trans History

From Ancient Times to the Present Day

by Alex L. Combs and Andrew Eakett
read by a full cast

Listening Library, 2025. 3 hours, 36 minutes.
Review written February 10, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2026 Odyssey Award Young Adult Winner

The Odyssey Award is given each year for the best audiobook production, and I always make sure to listen to the winners and honor books, because they are without fail wonderful. As it happened, I already had the print graphic novel version of this book checked out, and I always wonder how audiobook producers can pull off converting a graphic novel to an audiobook.

Let me tell you, these folks went all in. They used music and sound effects to help enhance your understanding of what was going on. And when they say “Full Cast” – I don’t see an indication of how many different voices they used, but I have no doubt the number is high. (I think they read off names at the end of the audiobook, so they weren’t without credit.) Especially meaningful was that the last chapter features twelve modern-day trans folks, and these people spoke their own words on the audiobook.

I did take a look at the graphic novel – and I think that both formats offer something unique. But the audiobook production was so deserving of the award, don’t miss that version!

If you ever thought that transgender people are a recent phenomenon, this book will put that idea to rest. They cover trans history, yes, beginning in ancient times – with the caveat that the historical people they talk about would have used different words and wouldn’t necessarily have called themselves trans if they had lived today. But they make a clear point that diversity of gender expression has been around as long as humans have.

The chapters cover the ancient world, Europeans and colonialism, the rise of Sexology, the history of trans people in the United States, and then present day voices from the trans community.

In the preface, the authors say they have three goals for the book:

1. Help dispel the myth that trans people are a “new thing.”

2. Demonstrate that what it means to be trans varies greatly among trans people.

3. Empower trans people by helping them learn about trans history.

They met these goals well, and they also presented a fascinating history I hadn’t known much about, in an entertaining way. The production of this audiobook is stunning and the stories were riveting. May this super informative and helpful look at trans history break down myths and stereotypes and fight marginalization.

alexlcombs.com
candlewick.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teen_Nonfiction/trans_history.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of (S)Kin, by Ibi Zoboi

Audiobooks, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

(S)Kin

by Ibi Zoboi
read by Bahni Turpin and Robin Miles

Versify (HarperCollins), 2025. 6 hours, 16 minutes.
Review written January 31, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2025 National Book Award Finalist

This paranormal novel in verse features two viewpoint characters. Marisol and her mother have moved from the Caribbean islands to New York City, and it’s the new moon – time for Marisol to shape shift. She sheds her skin and shifts into a fireball witch who flies through the night and wreaks vengeance on the person her mother directs her to. Her mother and the mothers before them have shapeshifted for generations, and they thought that in New York City, where no one believes the old stories, they might find it easier to be human, not treated as monsters.

Also in New York City, Genevieve, with darker skin from an unknown mother, lives with her white father and white stepmother. She’s got a terrible skin condition – some kind of allergy or eczema, always burning. Her father studies folklore, and she wonders if her mother was some kind of mermaid.

But when a woman shows up to tend her baby siblings who can soothe her skin, Gen wonders what kind of magic is happening.

Ibi Zoboi takes actual Caribbean legends and shows us what it might be like to be one of those mythical creatures – and dream of better things in America. How might that work out for teens who only want to be normal humans, blending in with their peers?

A powerful story of kinship and identity.

ibizoboi.net

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/s_kin.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of The Nine Moons of Han Yu and Luli, by Karina Yan Glaser

Audiobooks, Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

The Nine Moons of Han Yu and Luli

by Karina Yan Glaser
read by Sira Siu and Brian Nishii

HarperCollins, 2025. 10 hours, 1 minute.
Review written January 31, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2026 Newbery Honor Book

The Nine Moons of Han Yu and Luli tells two stories, 1200 years apart. Han Yu is a boy living in China in the year 731, during the Tang dynasty. He sells steamed buns in the market with his father. But when his entire family gets put into isolation because of his sister’s case of the illness sweeping the countryside, Han Yu decides to accept the commission intended for his father and travel along the trade routes later known as the Silk Roads to deliver the goods and make more money than his family can make in a year.

Alongside that story, with alternating chapters, we learn about Luli, who lives in 1931 Chinatown in New York City. Luli’s family owns a restaurant that used to be bustling and busy, but now hard times have fallen and business is slow, and they are in danger of losing the building that houses their restaurant and their home.

The parallels in the story are skillfully executed, though the children’s lives are so far apart in time and space. Both children start selling steamed buns to help their families. Both face difficulties and hardships with a parallel flow through the alternating chapters. Despite the cliffhanger chapter endings, I never found myself annoyed to switch characters, because I was equally interested in each character’s adventures.

Han Yu has a way with animals that they come to him and turn to him. And rumors say that a tiger protects him. Along the way, he meets a young poet who becomes his best friend. Luli, too, has a dog who protects her, and friends who help. Her whole class visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and they also visit the Chinese art treasures that Luli’s neighbor keeps in their building at the gift shop.

What ties the two stories together? There’s a piece of silk that has been handed down in Luli’s neighbor’s family for generations. It has a poem written on it in Chinese characters. So we’re ready to hear the story of how it came to be.

I have to say that both characters have some awfully good luck that keeps disaster averted – but in a children’s story, I think we all have more tolerance for that. (I certainly needed those kids to get a happy ending!) And the kids themselves both have plenty of opportunities to display courage and resourcefulness.

It’s not every author who can tie together two stories of children from 1200 years apart who never meet and have it work beautifully. This story, steeped in actual history, gives the reader a deep appreciation for Chinese culture along with the joy of a story well-told.

karinaglaser.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/9_moons_of_han_yu_and_luli.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of How to Read a Book, by Monica Wood

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

How to Read a Book

by Monica Wood
read by Eileen Stevens

HarperCollins, 2024. 10 hours, 18 minutes.
Review written January 28, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

First, a great big thank you to my friend Eileen, who recommended this book. I loved it so much!

I mean, what’s not to like? It starts out in a book club in a women’s prison. Violet, who’s 22 years old and was in prison for manslaughter, is remembering how the meetings used to go. The women would find fault with most of the books, but got a lot of satisfaction out of even that.

Then Violet gets out of prison. Her sister picks her up, but shows her an apartment in the city, rent paid for with inheritance money after their mother’s death – which the whole family blames Violet for. Her family doesn’t want her to even come back to their small town.

But in Portland, Maine, Violet runs into Harriet, the lady who ran the book club, in a book store – and also encounters Frank, the man whose wife died when Violet was driving drunk.

One thing leads to another – also involving a job taking care of highly intelligent parrots – and I was super interested all the way, enjoying the company of these kind and wise people. (Well, Violet doesn’t always act wisely, but Harriet and Frank are there to help.)

And of course it’s a book about the power of books to connect people and transform lives. And a book about second chances. And standing up for yourself even after you make bad mistakes.

It’s also the sort of book that expands your heart.

monicawood.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/how_to_read_a_book.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of The Lost Bookshop, by Evie Woods

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Fiction Review, Historical, Paranormal, Romance 0

The Lost Bookshop

by Evie Woods
read by Avena Mansergh-Wallace, Olivia Mace, and Nick Biadon

One More Chapter (HarperCollins), 2023. 12 hours, 1 minute.
Review written December 26, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.

I put a hold on The Lost Bookshop because of how much I enjoyed the author’s The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris. This one was very similar, and I also enjoyed it. In both, we’ve got one historical thread combined with a romance in the present, and the perspectives of both the man and woman involved in the romance, plus the perspective of the character in history whose actions affect the present.

Our characters in this book start with Opaline, in the early twentieth century, whose brother was forcing her to marry a man she hadn’t even met after their father died. Opaline flees to Paris, and there starts working with Sylvia Beach in the famous Shakespeare & Co. bookshop. She later moves to Dublin and starts her own bookshop – until her brother gets her committed to an insane asylum.

In the present, we’ve got Martha, who’s fleeing her abusive husband and looking for a job in Dublin. She lands a job as a housekeeper for an eccentric old woman in a historic home. Then one day she sees Henry scrutinizing her windows and thinks he’s a peeping Tom. But he is looking for a bookshop with an address right next to her house – that doesn’t seem to exist. But Henry is a rare book dealer and has a letter that says that bookshop has Emily Bronte’s lost second manuscript.

One thing leads to another, and you can tell where it’s going – but it’s fun. Opaline’s story – in Paris and especially in the insane asylum – is riveting.

I have to say that this book had more paranormal elements than The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris – and for me this one crossed the line into unbelievability. It wasn’t only the bookshop that only appears to those who need it (or true believers? or something), but also mysterious otherworldly messages, and several more things.

However, despite a few too many paranormal bits for my taste – I still enjoyed these characters. Henry always seems to say the wrong thing, but he’s earnest and kind. Martha fleeing a truly horrible abusive situation had all my sympathy as well. (I saw my ex-husband for the first time in a decade when I was in the middle of listening to this book and was reminded of how we program ourselves to love someone, and that’s hard to turn off, even when their behavior means they don’t deserve or want your love any more. Not that mine was as bad as Martha’s husband. But still, she had my sympathy.) And Opaline’s situation was also fascinating in an awful way, tying in with what I’d read in Ten Days a Madwoman, by Deborah Noyes. It wasn’t all that long ago that men could lock women up in insane asylums.

Fortunately, this story ends happily for all our main characters. This is a feel-good romance, a little too enthusiastic with the paranormal elements, but you can be sure that all the stars align for them in the end.

eviewoods.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/lost_bookshop.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of The Sirens’ Call, by Chris Hayes

Audiobooks, Current Issues, Nonfiction Review 0

The Sirens’ Call

How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource

by Chris Hayes
read by the author

Books on Tape, 2025. 8 hours, 55 minutes.
Review written January 15, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

This is a book about attention and the Attention Economy. Sirens were developed to seize our attention. And Odysseus resisted the sirens of mythology only by being tied to a mast. Today the world has found ways to produce sirens that seize our attention – and we carry them around in our pockets.

At first, I expected a version of “Our attention spans are much shorter because we use our phones so much.” But I got a much more thoughtful, much more nuanced work. Chris Hayes kept talking about himself as being “in the attention business” as a host for MSNBC. And he explores far more aspects of attention than I had even realized existed – and how things have changed over time.

Did you know that when cars were first built, people thought having a radio would be too distracting? Or that spam (with different names) has been a problem for centuries – including too many posters on the streets of Paris? Or that google started as a way to save people time by getting pertinent search results – which gave them people’s time and attention – which they sold to advertisers = which makes their search results less pertinent?

I did think it was funny that while he talked about people commonly watching more than one thing at a time (picture in picture or simply looking at one’s phone while watching TV), he never mentioned listening to audiobooks while doing other things. So it was amusing that I listened to this entire book while doing other things that didn’t require much brain power – driving, cleaning, and other mechanical tasks. Attention is a limited resource, and there are more things clamoring for it than ever.

And yes, he did discuss Donald Trump’s particular skill at gaining attention. Most politicians want attention, but also want to be liked. Donald Trump seems to only care about the attention part of that. And he’s very good at getting it.

It was also interesting to hear from a newscaster’s perspective that they feel like they are chasing attention rather than controlling it. It’s common to blame the media for what people have heard about, but to a large extent they are chasing attention themselves. If they talk about boring things, no one will listen to them, after all.

He also contrasted today’s sound bite world with the Lincoln-Douglass debates, where the candidates each talked for 90 minutes on substantive issues. Audiences wouldn’t stand for that today even if a person existed who could talk about issues that long.

I never feel like I do a good job summarizing nonfiction audiobooks, because I can’t refer back to the points made. However, this one explored all kinds of aspects of attention, put everything into historical context, and helped me notice when people are trying to manipulate my attention. All done in an interesting way. I didn’t regret giving the book, if not my full attention, at least a large portion of my attention while I was doing other boring things.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/sirens_call.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of Hekate: The Witch, by Nikita Gill

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

Hekate

The Witch

by Nikita Gill
read by the author

Hachette Audio, 2025. 6 hours, 12 minutes.
Review written January 10, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

This audiobook was simply beautiful. The reader’s lovely accent helped. The whole audiobook, I wondered why they used a reader with an Indian accent to read a story from Greek mythology – and then when I went to write this review, I learned it had been the author’s voice all along. Her voice and accent are beautiful, and it turns out she’s British-Indian, which is also what I was hearing. Lovely!

The story is about a Greek goddess I hadn’t known anything about, though many of the elements of her life were familiar – but now made deeply personal. Hekate was a child of war – when the Titans, including her father Perses, were fighting the Olympians. When the Titans lost the war, Hekate and her mother Asteria had to flee. Asteria found Hekate a safe home in the Underworld, under the care of her sister, the goddess Styx. But Asteria herself had to continue to flee and turned herself into an island to escape from Zeus.

Because of those circumstances, Hekate grew up in the underworld, not knowing her purpose – which should have been given to her by her father at her birth. Meanwhile, she chafes under the “protection” of Styx – and devises her own quest to learn her parents’ fate and to discover her own powers and purpose. So it’s a coming-of-age tale for a goddess and a powerful witch.

And the writing is lyrical and beautiful. This is one of those audiobooks that you can actually tell is a novel in verse – often I can’t tell from the audio, but that wasn’t a problem here. I liked the way many of the individual poems ended with a reversal that would lead you into the next poem.

This is Greek mythology from the inside (or from the underside), seen through the eyes of a child growing into a goddess.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/hekate.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow

Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

Wundersmith

The Calling of Morrigan Crow

by Jessica Townsend
read by Gemma Whelan

Hachette Audio (Little, Brown), 2018. 12 hours on 10 CDs.
Starred Review
Review written November 6, 2019, from a library audiobook

First, how did this review get buried so long in my unposted drafts? I’m not sure, but here, at last, it is.

Wundersmith is the sequel to Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow, or I should say the second book in the series, because the story isn’t finished yet.

All her life, Morrigan Crow has been told she was cursed, and any misfortune that happened to anyone around her was blamed on her. In the first book, she learned that she’s actually a Wundersmith – an amazing gift with the ability to manipulate Wunder, and she’s brought to Nevermoor, a magical place that folks on the outside don’t even know about, and she competes to become part of the Wundrous Society.

In the second book, she’s officially part of the Wundrous Society and ready to begin her classes with the eight other members of her unit. They’re supposed to be like her new brothers and sisters.

But things don’t go like the reader expects. Suppose in the Harry Potter books that Voldemort had a particular powerful gift and was still in power outside Hogwarts. And then suppose Harry was the first wizard to have that exact same gift in one hundred years. Would people be willing to actually train him in his gift?

That’s the situation for Morrigan Crow. The “most evil man who ever lived” was a Wundersmith, and he has been banished from Nevermoor and his name is mentioned to frighten children. Morrigan is the first person to have this gift in a hundred years, and no one in the Wundrous Society wants to teach her “the wretched arts” that a Wundersmith uses.

The only class she’s assigned is a history of Wundersmiths, taught by an instructor who goes over and over how evil or stupid every single Wundersmith has been.

Meanwhile, her unit is told that if they tell anyone that Morrigan is a Wundersmith, they will all be expelled from the Wundrous Society. But someone starts blackmailing them, one by one, or the secret will be revealed. Do they care enough about Morrigan to keep her secret?

At the same time, various people and creatures start going missing. Is Morrigan to blame? Her patron, Jupiter North, is spending all his time working on the problem – so he’s not around for Morrigan to confide in.

The situations all work to a dramatic finish, but with hints of more problems to come.

This book is delightful, and I especially enjoyed listening to it, the narrator’s accent adding to my enjoyment. Jessica Townsend has a vivid imagination, throwing fun tidbits into the story – tricksy lanes that do strange things to you as you walk into them, a smoking room that generates different flavors of smoke, a building made of water, and so much more. I didn’t want to think too hard about how some of the things would actually work, but they were great fun to read about.

Now, there were many places in this book where, like the Harry Potter books, I firmly wished they would just tell a teacher! As with those, various motivations were given for why they didn’t, and it did all work out in the end. There was also a huge coincidence that Morrigan ended up stumbling on something that ended up being a major plot point, but all things taken together, it didn’t ruin the book.

So if you want to read another saga set in an imaginative, magical world, where a young magic user must learn how to use her power to fight evil, in the company of loyal friends – look no further! This series would also make great family listening. I can’t wait to find out what happens next!

HachetteAudio.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/wundersmith.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?