This sounded sooo cool...and then it wasn't. It was a bit...chunky...that feels like the wrong word for it, but the pacing was weird and uneven. I had to DNF it. Two stars because I really like the idea behind it, but I feel that it was ultimately poorly executed.

3.5 Stars rounded down due to uneven pacing and a sadly anti-climatic ending. For 90% of the book I was going for 3.5 stars rounded up but upon finishing the book I just couldn't do it. There was too much that pulled me out of the story to leave it a 4 stars.

Haley and Oliver are two friends at an exclusive boarding school called Hamilton. Everyone is pretentious as indicated by the fact all the buildings had names: the dining hall is King, the library Lovecraft, gym Poe, girls dorm Shelley, boys dorm Koontz, etc. On a dare Haley sneaks into one of the buildings said to be haunted and takes the wrong door into a world she can only imagine. Life and death decisions are up to her creator mind as she and Oliver help Mr. Jack Dawes the shape-changing principal and Tom the King of the Cats deal with a terrifying wizard named the Gryphon.

My first problem is this is short enough to be a middle grade book but read like a limp young adult story. In fact, I didn't know this was anything but a YA until I re-read the verbiage and found it said: "Genre: Middle Grade / Young Adult adventure."

A middle grade book should have a protagonist that feels distinctly like a child on the cusp of adulthood. Haley felt too life worn to be anything but a teenager who has already experienced life like an adult. She spoke about relationships like an adult too yet her narrative didn't read like a 15-16 year old. On the other hand she went around breaking into buildings and camping overnight alone. And that was a big problem in the story. Haley also was very inconsistent. Her morals seemed to sway with what the author felt was best in the situation. For example, we should accept when good, loved characters die in the course of their story yet when the villain dies during the course of his own story we must use our special powers to save him ASAP because we are creators. Hum. Yeah it doesn't make sense. Keep it simple, kids don't overthink things. Part of the problem was Haley was supposed to be 15 and that is such a hard age to write. 14 years old or 16 years old is much easier because 15 is a time of transition, the boarderlands between distinctly child and distinctly adult. While that is a good age of a middle grade crossover to YA it isn't if you aren't bringing that age expertly to the page. In fact, in the beginning I thought the POV character was a boy, having forgotten the main character was called Haley. It read like a boy until she talked about her curves.

The setup went really, really fast. The story started with her moving into Hamilton but she quickly was amongst a group of friends who dared her to prove to them there were no ghosts. The setup went so fast that you assume the boarding school wasn't going to be a big story aspect of the story except as a setting. Then in the end we linger and linger and linger in the school setting all the while I'm shouting for Haley to just shut up already and stop creating more stories that will only add to their troubles! This is the nature of the uneven pacing that plagues the book. Once in the story worlds the plot picked up and it was very exciting with its brisk pace. Any time spent in the boarding school world was pretty boring and there was just too much telling and info dumping during this time.

Mr. Dawes, the principal was interesting from the moment you met him with the odd little poem and with the crow shapeshifting. Tom, King of Cats, was also a character that worked well in the multiple genre melding of stories that is part of the plot of this story. My favorite was perhaps Dorian, the elf with the sad story. Though I also loved the windriders. Really even Oliver was a rather brilliant character too, I was way more interested in his internal narrative than I ever was Haley. So really stellar secondary characters. The clockwork was a great twist put into effect by the Gryphon. I thought the rest of the villain aspect of him was a little off. I got it that his power corrupted him into the demon like character he became but I didn't see the point of the Star Wars like reversion at the end.

Another strong aspect of the book was the writing. Yes there was some inappropriate telling and a bit too much info dumping in dialogue but it was obvious the writer thought out the elements he put into the story. They were simple yet had depth and explained some of the world building. The pixies were the best aspect of the story, and my favorite but I also liked when he explained the Wind Riders (faerie people):

"Wind Riders had learned to catch the wind and use it, channel it, make things from its essence, and tame various birds. “We sing and dance every night,” she said.


The problem was some of the best action was left to happen off screen. The best parts were the scary ones where the characters had to face some pretty gruesome and scary turn of events. While the stories Haley and her gang entered were all rather stereotypical they had good details and were used in surprising ways. The explanations of why the world worked the way it did and why the secondary characters had so much information all made sense. The world building was perhaps the best aspect of the whole book. The story was simple as a middle grade one should be. I just wish the moral dilemmas had been better presented.

I think every reader can agree that the premise had such promise. I don't think the Gryphon as the first and weakest villain was a bad choice. Though I wish his end had been more clear cut, I liked the twists and turns with how Haley got them the allies they needed to succeed. The love interest was nice and soft as it should be in a middle grade story. And I think Oliver is a good one. I kind of wish this had been written from his POV instead of Haley or a shared 1/2 and 1/2 POV. It's good for middle grade readers to see both the female and male POVs for they would and should be different.

The cover gives you one impression of the story, the verbiage another impression and the story doesn't equal your expectations. A few changes and a little better marketing and this would find a great group of middle grade horror lovers.

BOTTOM LINE: A genre confused story with great possibilities

I started t read this book for the fun of time travel - and since i am a fan of it. Till now is gong pretty good. I consider this book from ages 12 and up.

This was quite hard to get into (took about a third for me to finally break through to where I'm following the story), but it was alright after that. However, it's somewhere between 2 and 3 stars. The story is pretty convoluted and quite hard to figure out, so you just end up having to gullibly buy it and go with it. The main characters aren't very natural or believable (Haley is supposed to be a teen girl. She doesn't feel at all like one.) Also, the book felt vaguely somewhere in between of YA, middle grade and even adult in places - I feel like it would have benefited more, had it been written solely as a middle grade story.

The enjoyable bits of this were the secondary characters which don't really need to be that deeply fleshed out anyway, so they didn't really suffer from what I mentioned before (plus, a talking cat character? Yes, please.) The stories they traveled were also interesting. But the ending wasn't satisfying (and I don't think there was eventually a sequel?) The story could have been so much better, because the plot itself did carry some promise initially.

I thank the author and the publisher for giving me a free copy in exchange for an honest review. This doesn't affect my opinion.

I was expecting great things from this book, but it fell just a little short. That’s not to say that it didn’t have innovative, engaging aspects.

The concept is great- a teen who finds herself in a world of stories; layers upon layers of stories retold by the creators with doorways in and out. Stories full of characters as real as you or I- sub characters, main characters, heroes, villains. The world building was detailed, and I understood the narrative, but there were lots of info dumps. Large parts of the narrative were taken up explaining the way the story worlds worked, and what the ‘story’ characters were trying to achieve. However, the different story worlds and characters created by Candee were brilliantly imaginative.

My favourite characters were Tom the King of Cats, and Jack ‘Mr Dawes’, a man who can tranform into a Jackdaw. Both these characters held intrigue, and I loved the complexity of one character who you think betrays Haley, the main character. The narrative is written in first person, but I didn’t like Haley that much. I mean, I didn’t dislike her, but she confused me. Scared, brave, scared, brave. Trusting, untrusting, trusting, untrusting. You get the picture.

I thought the relationship between Haley and Oliver was sweet and had a believable, slow build up, but I wanted a dramatic ‘You’re the one for me’ moment of sorts. Instead, the ending became about Sarah who is a total b**tch. There are some life lessons for teens thrown in for good measure.

I just wanted to include a favourite exchange of mine:

“Do you mean storytellers give away parts of their souls every time they tell a story?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” Jack said with that creepy smile plastered on his face.

In summary, a book full of imagination, detailed world building, and some great characters, but a narrative heavy with info dumps.

No longer interested in reading this. Clearing out old galleys.

I started t read this book for the fun of time travel - and since i am a fan of it. Till now is gong pretty good. I consider this book from ages 12 and up.