Excellent, fun, fantastic workd building and a lovable protagonist that I want to root for. I really enjoyed the themes of family and Friendship

this was an excellent book! I really struggled to put it down. I loved the Umbra, they were such a fantastic idea, and Mia's umbra, Lux and Nox were especially brilliant and very sassy, bringing a bit of a light humour to a book with a darker story.
It's hard to say why I enjoyed this book so much, the characters were all great and interesting to read about (i've read a few books recently where i couldn't connect at all with any of the characters, so this was really refreshing!), the storyline was fast paced and really exciting.
I just hope that there will be more books in this series, as i'd love to read more about mia, lux and nox (and all the others too!) but it's left a bit opened ended as to whether or not there will be a sequel.
definitely worth a read, and great exciting adventure fantasy tale. go read it now!

Three years ago, Mimi and Miles and Mimi's little brother Lucas set out to see a wild Umbra - a shape-changing fierce flying animal that have been tamed by her community and kept in their homes as companion animals. Mimi's parents are famous Umbra tamers.
What they found outside the city terrified them!
Now Mimi needs to tame and ride her own Umbra to protect her home town of Nubris from destruction by outside forces.
The worldbuilding is very complex and difficult to follow. The motivation for those who ravage the cities is unclear, which makes the central conflict and the role of the queen, for example, very confusing.
This fast-paced fantasy will delight younger readers at a basic level.

Delightful family read that we all enjoyed. The youngest granddaughter is now pretending to be Mia constantly and demanding an Umbra as a pet. Apparently cats don't cut it these days. That's how convincing this book is. Still working out how to solve that one.

I really enjoyed this middle grade fantasy, it was well written with an enchanting storyline that was completely packed full with action and adventure, and well developed charcaters that I loved and children will find relatable. I would have loved to have been able to read this as a child, A fantastic read.