Amos Daragon - The Mask Wearer by Bryan Perro

Synopsis:

The legendary masks of power bore the sacred magic of the elements and were only given to those of great courage and spirit.

Amos Daragon was one of the chosen. On the day of his birth the supreme goddess of the world, the Lady in White, wrote his fate in golden letters in the great history of eternal heroes. There she waited patiently for the day he would begin to fulfil his destiny.

Pretty covers on books are a massive selling point for me. I know, I am unashamedly shallow and I am equally unapologetic about it too! When I received a copy of Amos Daragon – The Mask Wearer, I was instantly smitten. The artwork is full of motion and very evocative. Then I opened the cover and read the first few pages...and was struck by how quickly I got sucked into Amos’ world.

If you read the above synopsis and you are tickled and interested, pop by to www.amosdaragon.co.uk and you will find the opening chapter which should be sufficient to give you a glimpse of what I mean.

Amos Daragon is definitely a read for a younger audience which both boys and girls alike should enjoy reading. There is action, adventure, shape changers, creatures from myth and legend and then there is Amos himself who is a very likeable hero who is very clever – but not a smartypants so you never do get irritated by him.

The antagonist in the Mask Wearer is a very daunting character, a naga, and I have to applaud the author’s creativity when it comes to creating the world which Amos, his parents and friends live in. Although the book is a slender offering, it packs a punch and the impression you get from reading it, is that you are watching an IMAX movie in wide cinemascope. The Mask Wearer sets up Amos for the rest of his adventures and looking at the upcoming titles, they are going to be genuinely good fun.

The books are hugely popular in the author’s native Canada and as far as I can tell Amos’ adventures extend to nine books already. All of these should be due for release in the UK shortly, with the second one in the series being released in September 09.

Find the author’s website here - http://www.bryanperro.com/ - which is in French but Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_Daragon - seems to have some good information about the entire series which may be worth checking out, including details about Amos Daragon being made into an animated television series.

Children's Book Competition News

This is the final proof of the leaflet for the competition. I will have a limited amount of leaflets to send out to libraries and schools, along with a limited amount of bookmarks, to advertise this very cool event.

We received our final box of books from our publishers last night and needless to say, we are chuffed beyond belief by the fantastic response. We are very grateful and beamingly pleased and proud that this initiative has taken off.

Mark and I are preparing the individual books to give away to selected school kids entering the competition. We are also putting together the four rather large and bulky boxes to go out to four lucky schools. (Or more, I'm thinking, as the donations from the publishers exceeded my expectations!)

If any of you, dear readers, are in the UK, and you have kids / have friends or family with kids in school / are libarians / are in school (you get the idea) please get in touch with the school as soon as possible and send them over here! I've had the marketing leaflets and bookmarks done up, to promote the competition and am keen to send them out.

In this instance, to make sure that I'm not wasting my time, I will ONLY be sending the leaflets and bookmarks to librarians and schools.

Rules:

Entry will be open to schools and libraries only. (The boxes will only be sent to these places, not to individuals/residential addresses.)

School children entering the competition for individual prizes can only do so with the permission of their parents - I expect to see a note of consent from a parent in the email or the parent's own email address so I can verify it. Only if you win, will I contact you for your address details - please do not send any address / contact details in the initial email.

No emails or addresses are kept once the competition is over.

As part of the vetting process, school children will have to also let me know what school they are in. This is to prevent too many books going out to perhaps the same school.

The competition starts 1st February 2009 and the last day will be 28th February 2009. Winners will be announced on 1st March 2009. Our random selection of names will be final and no discussion will be entered into. If you are contacted as a winner and you do not respond within 5 days of receipt of the confirmation email, the prize will be allocated to another winner and so on.

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And that's all I can come up with for now. We're keeping it simple and easy - an email is all it takes to get you / your school in the running.

Please contact us via the email on the top right to enter to let us know if you would like any flyers and bookmarks and once the competition starts and make sure to say in the subject line if you are a school or a library.

If you are a school child, you will be required to put down the book you would like to enter for in the subject line. You can enter as many times as you wish for different books.

Good luck to all and I look forward to sending out my pretty leaflets and bookmarks!

The Thirteen Treasures by Michelle Harrison

Synopsis

While visiting her grandmother's house, an old photograph leads Tanya to an unsolved mystery. Fifty years ago a girl vanished in the woods nearby - a girl Tanya's grandmother will not speak of. Fabian, the caretaker's son, is tormented by the girl's disappearance. His grandfather was the last person to see her alive, and has lived under suspicion ever since. Together, Tanya and Fabian decide to find the truth. But Tanya has her own secret: the ability to see fairies. And, after disturbing an intruder in the night, it emerges that someone else shares her ability...The manor's sinister history is about to repeat itself...

Firstly, I loved the cover, illustrated by Christopher Gibbs. The picture of the charm bracelet really hit the right spot. I love charms and talismans and really believe in their secret powers. (Yes, even expensive Links of London charms are imbued with that magical something).

Also, the line at the top of the front cover – A family secret, a fateful inheritance...

You just cannot go wrong with the look and feel of this, at all.

The novel introduces us to Tanya who has some issues, apart from being harassed by fairies, her mother believes that she is being particularly difficult (mostly because of the pranks the fairies play), therefore sending her off to live with a grandmother she’s never warmed to in a manor house that can be described as gloomy, at the best of times.

I found the novel a bit self-conscious to start with, there was a hesitancy there for the first few pages, but once the author gets into the swing of things, Tanya’s adventure is full blown and it is a hairy one!

Her life at the manor house is stilted – there is no warmth from her grandmother, her days are spent avoiding the forest outside the door and trying not to draw the attention of Fabian, the grounds keeper’s son. Fabian is an interesting creation and I found him very well drawn, with insecurities a mile long, a stubbornness and a weirdness, that was both endearing and a bit alarming.

Together Fabian and Tanya unravel the story of the girl that went missing in the forest, all those years ago. Fabian feels harassed by its memory – it’s directly affected his family, turning his grandfather, Amos, into an unpleasant old man, locked away on the second floor of the manor house.

Throw in Fabian’s dad who watches them with an eagle’s eye, warning them to stay out of the forest, toss in the rumours of the hidden tunnels that run from the manor house into the small adjacent town, add into the mix mysterious disappearances of very young children in the area, pinch in a Tanya’s own second sight ability which is both a curse and blessing, stir in the mystery surrounding the original owners of the manor house, fold in the weird gypsy lady who lives in the forest whose presence is a constant reminder that all is not well in the area, place in the oven and bake to perfection until you get a book with several ingredients, pulling together to make a hearty satisfying read.

I enjoyed it – I thought it was satisfyingly dark with the author reworking the Victorian image we have about fairies, shining a new light on them, their courts, making them a bit more sinister, turning them into proper adversaries to go up against Tanya and Fabian.

So much goes on in this novel that I can’t even begin to put it all together into this review as it will spoil the fun you will have reading it.

I hate doing “if you like” recommendations BUT am happy to say that if you liked Holly Black’s Tithe, Valiant and Ironside you will enjoy The Thirteen Treasures. Similarly, if you read Emma Bull’s Finder or Midori Snyder’s Hannah’s Garden you will thrill to The Thirteen Treasures.

The Thirteen Treasures were published by Simon & Schuster earlier this month. Find the author’s site here.