Final rating 4.5/5 stars

I really enjoyed this! It reminded me a little of Brave Story by Miyuki Miyabe. (Just a bit).
This author has a really fluid writing style, and her characters were extremely engaging.
I would definitely recommend for younger readers who want to get into fantasy.

This book was amazing! With the right amount of magic and fantasy. It left me breathless and I couldn't stop reading.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This is a fantastic book for kids who want to get into fantasy. Basically Esme is trying to find out what happened to her mother who drowned under mysterious circumstances. Esme is very likable and I really want to check out the rest of the books in this series!

This book follows Esme, a 15-year-old girl who is still mourning the loss of her mother since her disappearance seven years prior. We meet Esme at her father's wedding to a new woman that Esme loathes, as did I. I actually found all of the adult characters in the "real world" to be extemely unlikeable. Her dad has simply lost patience with her and is shocked that Esme would be upset about him getting remarried, and Esme's new aunt-in-law is like the mean girl in high school, except she's supposed to be the responsible adult taking care of Mavis while her dad and new step-mom are off on their honeymoon.

Luckily, Esme's disdain for her aunt and constant curiosity for what happened to her mother brought her to the magical land of Aeolia. The world created by the author is absolutely magical and it's a place that my middle school self would have loved to visit. I think it'll be easy for a younger audience to fully immerse themselves into Aeolia and want to live in this world with dragons and magic and the ability to swim without drowning.

I had a love/hate relationship with the world building that the author did in this book. It's described so beautifully, and at times, it really does feel like you've stepped into this incredible magical world. On the other hand, some descriptions were so lengthy that it seemed unnecessary. I understand that the author was trying to paint a clear picture of this beautiful place, but at times, it felt like it was at the expense of good storytelling. There were times when a conflict would arise and be resolved in a matter of pages, and all of the conflicts felt like they were sandwiched within pages and pages of (sometimes unnecessary) description. I felt like I learned more about the world than I did about the characters. There was very little character growth at all.

That being said, I did enjoy following the journey of Esme trying to figure out what happened to her mother, and the world building was absolutely beautiful, even if at times it seemed like too much. As a middle grade book, I think readers will enjoy getting immersed in the magical world of Aeolia and seeing whether or not Esme will be able to finally understand the mystery behind her mother's disappearance.

This book was SO GOOD. I've been reading a lot of heavy nonfiction lately, so I picked this book up for a little escape and it did not disappoint at all. While I didn't love the beginning (who loves the mean stepmom and her family anyway?), I fell right into the story when Esme quite literally fell into Esperance. Elizabeth Foster's imagination is WILD; every little detail of this story made it come alive. This book will take you on a rollercoaster of emotions, but it's well worth a read. I will be looking to get my hands on the next book in the series ASAP because I must know what happens next!

This is a delightful fantasy story for readers in middle school (and beyond, like me!)

Esme longs to learn what happened to her mother. She just disappeared one day and Esme feels tethered to the past while her father has just remarried.

But while on his honeymoon, Esme spies something that leads her to find the portal between worlds. To learn that her mother's stories were not mere tales. And to determine that something bigger was amiss that kept her mom from returning home.

She also finds new friends, something she was sorely lacking back home. Plus the discovery of a shared ability that her mother most likely possessed.

I am eagerly awaiting the next book now!

The story opens with Esme at her father’s wedding. Seven years earlier her mother disappeared and left Esme wondering what happened and where her mother was. While her father and step-mother go away on their honeymoon, Esme is determined to find out the mystery of her mother’s disappearance. So begins her journey into an unknown, mythical world where she meets new friends and foes in her quest to find her mother.

I read this as part of a book challenge as it fit into the category middle grade. This isn’t a book I’d normally choose on my own. But, I think readers in this category would enjoy this book!

Thank you to NetGalley and Odyssey books for the ARC and a chance to read and provide a review!

Esme’s mother drowned some years ago and Esme still misses her. When her father remarries and goes on honeymoon, Esme is determined to use the time to discover more about her mother. This searching for answers takes her to a neighbouring island where her mother used to paint. It is from this island that Esme’s life will change forever.
Swimming into a parallel world, Esme discovers another world where she may yet discover more about her mother. Her mother used to come to this world and Esme meets some of her friends and begins to piece together some of the mysteries.

This is an enjoyable story following Esme as she finds small clues leading to her mother. Throughout the book, I was unsure as to what Esme’s motives were- to find answers or to find her mother. She lives in hope that she didn’t drown but is stuck in this other world.

This first in the series provides plenty of clues and answers to mysteries...it also ends just as Esme finds something hugely important and must then return to her own world. I believe book two will be interesting as Esme has been gone for weeks but it is unclear whether the time frames are the same in each world. Has her father been worried, or has Esme been missed at all?

This book wasn’t for me. The fantastical and flowery nature of it was not appealing. For anyone that likes the fantasy genre this may be for you.

Esme's Wish follows a young girl named Esme on her quest to find out what happened to her mum when she disappeared 7 years ago.

This is the first time I've really read a middle grade story as an adult and it did not disappoint - it is just so charming. It's like every part of the fantasy stories you loved as a kid come to life, it made me want to live in Esme's world! Esme is just the most likable character ever and I loved the friendships that were formed.
This was one of those books which kept me intreguied and invested on finding out what happened to Esme's mother. There is twists and turns everywhere and everything flowed effortlessly.
Well done to Elizabeth Foster for creating a brilliant story. I will definitely be picking up the sequel to this one.

Name: Esme's Wish
Author: Elizabeth Foster
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-fi, Adventure, Teen
Age:+8
Review:
The story is set in an archipelago, the protagonist, Esme is a 15 year old girl who disapproves her father's second marriage. Even after seven years, Esme is unable to let go of her mother, who disappeared in the sea. Living in Picton Island, Esme has always been an odd one, the inhabitants of the island has always treated her and her mother as a weird one. Unable to cope up with the changes that has been taking place in her life after her father's second marriage, Esme swears to find out the mystery behind her mother's disappearance.
It is a good read overall with amazing writing style and typical magical story. I really like the cover of this book, which attracted my attention to this book in the first place.

To begin with I didn’t realize this was a middle-grade reader before I finished the first few chapters. That normally isn’t a problem for me besides getting in the right mindset.
The writing in this book was lovely and descriptive. There was a wonderful world-building. Maybe a little too much if I’m being honest. While the story was charming it’s definitely not a fast-paced book. If you love the slow descriptions in Tolkien then this is a book for you! It’s a very clean read for younger readers. No language or romance or violence.
My only gripe was the last chapter. I REALLY wanted to see what happened when she got back home. But I guess that’s leaves you ready for book #2.

This is a tale that is utterly enchanting and totally consuming. I found myself even dreaming about the wonderous world of Aeolia created by the extremely talented Elizabeth Foster. This is something that rarely happens to me. In fact, I can count the number of times it has happened to me on a single hand.

To put that into perspective, only books such as R.R. Tolkien’s THE HOBBIT, THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy and the HARRY POTTER series have had this effect on me. Am I saying that ESME’S WISH is on par with these genre-defining tales? Well, I won’t go quite that far yet, but only because this is only BOOK ONE. Ask me again once I have had the pleasure of reading the entire series.

Although this book is targeted at the Young Adult audience, as was the Harry Potter series, this book also holds incredible appeal for adult readers as well.

Esme is swept from a world in which her father remarries a woman she despises, giving up all hope after seven years that his wife will ever return. He, and everyone else, including Esme, believe that her mother is dead. She thinks that the reason she has been told that her mother was lost at sea is because they are hiding something much more sinister. Being a typical fifteen year old, she sets off to visit the last place her mother was seen alive – hoping for clues as to what really happened to her.

Instead of discovering a secret clue, she is swept into the sea and pulled through some sort of portal into the wonderous world of Aeolia. This reminds me of Harry Potter leaving London by going to platform nine and three quarters.

Who among us has not thought of somehow going to a different world? This book delivers on that fantasy and Elizabeth Foster’s world building is spot on. The people of this fantasy world all have some sort of magical gift which manifests in young adulthood. I don’t want to give anymore away, but the plot is terrific and readers will be drawn in and continually surprised by the mystery of what happened to Esme’s mother.

I rate this book as 5 out of 5 Stars. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

3.5 stars.

This was a fun middle grade book with a good writing style and pace. I fell in love with the lore, the world and the possibility of the adventures yet to come.

As much fun as I had, there are some inconsistencies that I can’t ignore. The major ones are how convenient each problem magically solved itself as well as the lack of a proper indication for each time-skips. There were proper spacing in a few time-skips but most of them just start in the next paragraph and it didn’t look good to me (just my personal preference). The story would just rush to the next points without any indication of previous happenings half of the time.

The minor ones include weirdly structured conversations with the adults, and mostly some of Esme’s actions. She keeps re-remembering too many things, every new place she went to she’s sure she’s seen it before and though she was warned not to touch water much, she was swimming around here and there, forgetting that she’s been hurt. The other characters don’t really have much depth and though they're around, they don’t say anything sometimes until the next scene which makes me forget that they're there. The last 50 pages or so is just so chill like they're not in a rush or anywhere close to the ending.

Overall, this is a quick and good, above average, middle book that didn’t wander off from the plot too much. I would have rated this much higher if not for the problems being conveniently solved every single time. The lore of the whole parallel world is very appealing and I’d love to read more of it!

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with a digital copy for an honest review.