Book cover: When Joe is travelling to stay with his mother and stepfather for Christmas, little does he imagine the excitement that is in story for him. Before the journey is over he finds himself part of a dramatic conspiracy surrounding an ancient book of magic, and embroiled in a world of witches, spells and cunning plots. Can Joe and his new friend Twiggy solve the mystery before all is lost?

A fabulously detained and richly exciting adventure story that grips the reader in its magical clutches from the very first page.

Whispering to Witches is Anna Dale’s first book. it is a refreshing debut novel that proves her great skill as a brilliant storyteller for children. Full of action, excitement, intrigue and humour, it is an utterly irresistible read.

Plies of inventive detail lead me to ponder from early on in this story about this being one of a book series so I was surprised on checking once I had read this that there appeared to be no more tales of Joe, Twiggy and Esme. For the amount of work put into creating the world they inhabit seemed like a solid foundation onto which a bigger story could be built for them.

It certainly clipped along at a lively pace, and the mysteries kept piling up though I was befuddled with the importance or not of Joe’s father role in the drama, I really was hoping his quest was going to turn out to have more significance, though overall I was enchanted with the detail invested in this world. The useful paraphernalia for witches: witchy ink, invisible to non-witches; the use of a special mix of liquorice for allowing humans to hear animals talking; wind sprites tiny almost invisible creatures that turn out to play an intriguing and undervalued part in the lives of witches and the witches ability to tamper with peoples memories. All skills that have both a light and dark side. The different covens rivalry was amusing and delightfully character driven overall many of the protagonists were too sketchy for my taste, still the key to this is the cracking good storytelling. Amusing enough to prompt me to add some Anna Dale books to my wish-list!

I’m registering this a Halloween plan or two that I have been nurturing so I’ll be marking it as posted any day!

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES: A Halloween themed book, witches, young boy placed in tricky spot does his best to fight a wicked plan and makes new friends along the way.

This was popped into a box of goodies which was placed into the 2nd class post today. Allowing for the two day national postal strike, this ought to still arrive in time for opening on the 31 October 09. Happy Halloween Lutrus and family! Hopefully some amusements in here for all!

Thank you for the lovely parcel. The girls enjoyed helping me get all the bits and pieces out and loved collecting all the 'sparkles' together.

This looks like an interesting book & I look forward to reading it soon.