Disclaimer: I have voluntarily reviewed this book after receiving a free copy from the publisher via NetGalley, thank you!

Grimworld promised a story with a wonderful, spooky and atmospheric concept and in the end, the concept was one of the few things I liked about it. The gloomy town where everything is kind of dark and gothic in this Addams Family way sounded delightful and stealing lifespan with the use of pocket watches seemed like a great idea for a plot.

Sadly the rest was just really disappointing. The whole thing read like a draft, not a finished book - there was no buildup for any of the events, everything seemed rushed and there were scenes that consisted mostly of just dialogue. The characters were flat and I just had this feeling that everything went far too fast. I felt tired reading this book because of everything the tempo of the action that hardly let me focus on anything that was happening.

I wanted to enjoy this book but sadly I prefer books with more buildup and more developed characters. This one just wasn’t for me.

Grimworld was a fun, and quick read. I actually invisioned Tim Burton doing the animations to this story which made it much more appealing to me.

The target audience is meant for middle grade, however I feel it steers more towards the YA group which is a positive.

A delightful story, fun to read and entertaining.
It's creepy and lovely, well written and with a cast of great fleshed out characters.
I think it can be appreciated by people of all age.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a world where ghosts and ghouls were the norm? Where you could run into a ghast walking home from school? If you are like me and have often wondered what a world filled with creatures of the night might be like then Grimworld is definitely for you!

This book is about a boy named Henry who becomes the victim of a Vytiper, a dark being that steals years off of your life for their own gain through the use of a cursed pocket watch. Henry ends up meeting Lang another victim just like him, with only weeks left to live, and together they must face ghouls and villains that they never dreamed of.

This book handles stress and the “race against time” plot device well. You can feel the dread of the boys’ impending doom on each page. Time is of the essence as Lang’s time dwindles before their eyes. With each tick of the pocket watch, his life approaches its end. You can feel it from the very beginning when Lang tells Henry:

“By the way,” he leaned forward and grabbed Henry’s watch, inspecting it, “looks like you’ll die in 10 years.”

This stress pushes further when you discover how close Lang is to the end and is pushed even further when you are informed that Lang already knows someone who has perished to the Vytiper.

Moray releases info on the Vytiper in small morsels that are easy to chew but keeps you guessing until the end. The boys must pick up all of the information on the Vytiper on their own because it is a recent entity in their world and no one has had the time to further research the beings. Most people don’t even know of the Vytiper’s existence. With that said the boys’ mission doesn’t feel hopeless, they are capable protagonists who take every logical step to save themselves. Not once does it feel like they are making unrealistic decisions for their age, I hate when characters are made over or under mature for their age group. One thing I really need to enjoy a book is likable and believable characters, Grimworld offers just that. While each character has their quirks they also have strengths that make them interesting and lovable, from the very beginning I was rooting for Henry and Lang.

I might add one more piece to my review, and that is the realistic and unrealistic balance of the antagonist. The predicament they are in is reasonable. Being faced with death is a scary idea and I am willing to bet that there is a frightening amount of people in this world who would be willing to sacrifice years of another person’s life for their own gain. So while the antagonist is an unrealistic entity that could only surface in our nightmares, it has a human quality that makes it even scarier. We are faced with not only the fear of the unknown but the known.

Grimworld is a one-sitting book that really captured my attention and has jump-started my excitement for Halloween. If you are looking for a spooky middle-grade novel then I suggest you check out Grimworld you will be impressed. I give this book a whopping 5/5 stars! As always thank you to NetGalley and I’d like to extend a huge thank you to John Hunt Publishing Ltd. for giving me access to this wonderful book.

I really wanted to like this, but it completely failed to engage me. It feels a bit like a Tim Burton produced animation, the tale of young people in a dark fantasy world who are battling spirits who are sapping their lives. It’s likeable and imaginative, but the pages just washed over me with none of it really sinking in. Others may enjoy it more, but for me it was a bit of a non event

Grimworld was a creepy, original, and dark book. I looooove Coraline (and all things Neil Gaiman, obviously), so I was excited to read another author that can do a creepy and entertaining book! I loved it. Henry was a great main character, and I thought Avery Moray's writing was spectacular. Very suitable for those in middle school (and adults who enjoy charming, creepy novels)

Every day, thirteen year old Henry Bats has his usual bowl of Sugar Slugs, helps tend Cobalt Sidewinders at Frank's Peculiar Pets, and keeps to himself with his comic book collection. Just your typical day in Grimworld, where the sky is always dark and shadows lurk in the streets.

What's not typical is a suspicious Nightspook luring Henry into a cemetery in the middle of the night with the promise of a prized comic book. The Nightspook steals part of Henry's lifespan with a pocket watch, which begins counting down to his death. Henry is running out of time, and the pocket watch won't stop ticking...- Goodreads

Let me start off by saying that this was an extremely creative read that I strongly believe middle school readers would enjoy. . . as long as they are into the creepy stuff. 

When I began reading this book, I wasn't sure where it was going at first but then things started going not only deep but dark and I was all over it. Granted the author tried to make it a bit whimsical with the random characters but boil down to it this is a pretty dark story. It isn't even the fact that  the Nightspook itself is creepy its everything that happens after Henry realize part of his lifespan is gone. 

The pace of the novel was engaging and although it is a lot of running around and being shot down a few times, I was invested in the story from beginning to end. Henry was just perfect. An extremely smart kid, who not only was thinking of himself but for others. 

There is one character within this novel that I thought was fantastic and was worked so well within this novel. The author did a really good job with this characters role.

This is a short review I know but I can't keep going or I would be giving a lot a way. Overall, this was a surprising read that I was a but unsure about when I first started. But I am looking forward to book two and I hope it is as creepy as the first. 

4 Pickles

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Moray's book is a fantastic Middle Grade book that will enthrall fans of Coraline, Nightmare Before Christmas, and The Halloween Tree. When he is cheated out of a few years of his life, Henry sets out to get them back. Suitable for all ages over 8, this book will certainly entertain for years.

Thank you NetGalley and John Hunt Publishing for the opportunity to read an advance reader copy.

This book was likable but didn’t really stand out to me. The story was about a couple of kids who essentially get years of their life taken and are on a quest to get them back. I liked the premise and their were some neat aspects to the world. I didn’t find anything wrong with the book, it was just a nice story to read that I probably won’t read again.

Grimworld is an entertaining, if slightly simplistic, middle grade tale that should appeal to those who enjoy the weird and creepy. It focuses on Henry Bats, a boy who is tricked into giving up some of his lifespan to a ghost who returns from the dead, and his quest to get his years back. He finds others in the same situation as him, and the struggle to get their lives back becomes a race against time as they try to solve the puzzle of how to undo the theft.

I've seen people comparing this to Coraline, and it would definitely suit those looking for more dark, spooky children's fiction. However, I felt that it paled in comparison to Gaiman's creation, unfortunately. The writing is patchy, with some passages well-described and atmospheric, but others plodding. The sense of humour, too, veers from wittily tongue-in-cheek to a little try-hard, especially where the spooky details of the world are concerned in the beginning of the book, and in the repeated lettuce references of Henry's grandfather (I found the treatment of the grandfather pretty nasty actually, as many kids will have a grandparent affected by dementia or similar, whose topics of conversation are limited - it's not great to show them as an object of mockery). On the whole, it's by no means badly written, but I just wanted a little more sophistication from it - a lot of middle grade work, particularly in the realms of the fantastic, has such great worldbuilding and depth of plot that this disappointed me slightly. I would have liked a less linear questline (find these objects - okay, problem solved) and some better reasoning behind the villain's actions.

That being said, I enjoyed the friendships that arose between the characters, and the depiction of the sibling relationship between Hattie and Henry - it's nice to see kids actually behaving like siblings, with a mix of affection (that they'd never admit) and annoyance. It also gets points for pulling off an appropriate level of creepiness. Overall, I think this is a three-star read for me.

ARC Copy..it was a short read but the Grimworld feels surreal weird and strange yet the narrative stills plays out as if the protagonist is just regular kid wanting to be a normal kid who sees his habits and world as nothing strange.

The paranormal essence of this creepy story is the element that makes this book a five stars reading! Even if the plot can be summarised as the classic battle between good and evil this novel was fresh and intriguing till the end. the emotions were jumping out of the pages to capture the reader's attention. Definitely recommended to people who enjoyed Coraline and Tim Burton's settings.

Great early to middle grade books are a rare find and I'm glad I have stumbled upon Avery Moray's "Grimworld: Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock". There were definitely some Tim Burton's "Coraline" and "The Nightmare Between Christmas" vibes I got from this and I can easily envision what the characters and Grimworld would look like in his perspective. For that obvious reason I was immediately drawn to that concept and writing style cause I mean who doesn’t love Tim Burton inspired writing and/or movies?! The author did a fantastic job making this her own and taking the reader into another world thus making this one of my favorites reads of 2019. I would highly recommend this novel to anyone who is a fan of Tim Burton style stories to definitely give this a chance and not to forgot this novel is intended for early to middle grade but adults can still have an overall enjoyable reading experience reading this.

Grimworld is a wonderfully fun book meant for middle grade, but highly enjoyable for adults as well. This is the story of Henry Bats - a fairly ordinary young man in a world where dark is normal, ghouls roam freely, and no one blinks an eye at tunnel full of ghosts. Henry is tricked by a being called a Vytiper into giving away part of his life and must find a way to get it back. Along the way he meets a whole cast of new friends - characters who are charming, interesting, and engaging all on their own.

This book felt to me like it was set in a world not unlike the movie Paranorman. I found the world to be well imagined and lively, and thought it felt real even with the clear elements of fiction and fantasy. I enjoyed the interactions with the townsfolk, as it gave Henry’s story a more solid grounding. I thought the book was well paced. This feels like it would easily keep the attention of a younger reader. It was a nice balance of action without sacrificing the world building or character development.

Overall this was a quick, fun read that I would highly recommended to anyone and I look forward to reading more from this author.

ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was very pleasantly surprised. Pacing was great for this book, plot driven and always something happening to keep the attention of the reader.

This will be fantastic for younger readers and was even very enjoyable for myself as an adult.  My only critique is it could have been a bit longer so the characters could have been fleshed out more , however for the age range this is marketed for I think it will be perfect and keep there attention.

Very intrigued to see what Avery Moray writes next. Amazing debut!

Fun, clever, and sweet, perfect for middle grade readers but still enjoyable for an adult audience.

This felt like a mashup of early Harry Potter and The Nightmare Before Christmas, perhaps with a dash of Coraline thrown in. It’s also a unique and charming story in its own right, and not too scary for a younger audience.

It does contain a few elements that are awfully similar to plot points we’ve seen before (the Pampuzzle Club entrance, for example, is very, very similar to the Chamber of Secrets).

Still, there are plenty of inventive elements to the story, and even the familiar tropes used end up working in context.

“Don’t come back to haunt me.”

How can I even begin to describe this book? It was like reading a mashup of Coraline and The Nightmare Before Christmas. I could perfectly envision the telltale creepy stop animation in my mind of the ever dark Halloween esque town of Grimworld. Simply put, I loved this. It’s clever and original and genuinely creeped me out. For a children’s/middle grade book it did a fantastic job at being age appropriate yet suitably creepy.

The gist of the story is that Henry Bats has lost something dear to him for the exchange of a rare comic. That something is a portion of his life and NO, HE DID NOT GET THE COMIC WHICH IS AN OUTRAGE. Of course he has to try to get his life back but time is literally ticking in the form of a pocket watch fused on his neck. With the help of some newfound friends Henry goes around the creepy, curious planes of Grimworld to take what is rightfully his.

Characters:

They are all amazing in their own rights. Even the monsters. Especially the monsters. Special shoutout to Henry and Hattie’s grandpa who has an addiction to lettuce. I loved the interactions between all of the kids and I loved all the different creatures introduced.

My thoughts:

I had to add this to my favorite books of 2019 because it was that good and I will be buying this when it comes out. I don’t think my 7 year old is quite ready to read it yet as she gets scared easily but I’ll place it on the bookshelf. I hope to see more work from the author truly! Thanks very much to the publisher and Netgalley for this Arc. All opinions are my own. Please check out my blog for more reviews:
https://aelilyreads.home.blog/

An Engaging Ghost Tale for an Early or Middle Grade Reader

The premise here is that our hero, Henry, is tricked by a ghost, (the "Vytiper"), into giving away the remaining years of his lifespan. The arcane "symbol" of the deal is a pocket watch that shows how much of his lifetime Henry has left. Henry has to undo the deal by tricking or somehow forcing the ghost to give back the hands of the watch so that Henry can restore his life time. That's not a bad tale at all, and you can see how the story will follow a path that shows us the trick, Henry's worry, his search for help and answers, his plan to defeat the ghost, the build up, the confrontation, and so on.

The narrative is stripped down and fast paced. Everything happens quickly and the tale is told in short, direct sentences. There are lots of clever and engaging throwaway bits of background, scene setting, adventure, distractions, and deadpan humor, but the focus is always on moving the story along at speed. Sometimes it feels more like a campfire tale being recounted than it does a fully realized novel, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Henry is an appealing no-nonsense main character, and as he picks up allies along the way, (another kid who was also tricked, Henry's sister Hattie, yet another kid who was tricked), the story takes on the aspect of a friendship sort of tale, which is a nice bonus and in some ways the real heart of the story. The book could have been more tightly edited, and there are a number of clauses and modifiers that were left out to dangle where a comma or two and some rearranging could have been helpful, but they were more minor annoyances than deal killers.

So, this was fun and inventive and good natured; it struck me as a fine ghost tale/adventure for an early reader who didn't need anything too scary, and just twisty and action packed enough to also grab an older kid. (Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

Avery Moray has written a fine fantasy young adult novel with Grimworld. I enjoyed this book as an adult reader and would readily share it with young adult/middle school and high school readers. A nice balance of elements that appeal to older and younger audiences.