Hey everyone! I'm honored to be taking part in the blog tour for the beautiful
Spellbook of the Lost and Found
today! Check out my review below and then be sure to enter to win a copy and visit all the rest of the stops for some great features!
• ABOUT THE BOOK•
• ABOUT THE BOOK•
by Moïra Fowley-Doyle
♦publisher: Kathy Dawson Books
♦release date: August 8th, 2017
♦hardcover, 368 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦stand-alone
One stormy Irish summer night, Olive and her best friend, Rose, begin to lose things. It starts with simple items like hairclips and jewelry, but soon it's clear that Rose has lost something much bigger, something she won't talk about, and Olive thinks her best friend is slipping away.
Then seductive diary pages written by a girl named Laurel begin to appear all over town. And Olive meets three mysterious strangers: Ivy, Hazel, and her twin brother, Rowan, secretly squatting in an abandoned housing estate. The trio are wild and alluring, but they seem lost too—and like Rose, they're holding tight to painful secrets.
When they discover the spellbook, it changes everything. Damp, tattered and ancient, it's full of hand-inked charms to conjure back things that have been lost. And it just might be their chance to find what they each need to set everything back to rights.
Unless it's leading them toward things that were never meant to be found...
Then seductive diary pages written by a girl named Laurel begin to appear all over town. And Olive meets three mysterious strangers: Ivy, Hazel, and her twin brother, Rowan, secretly squatting in an abandoned housing estate. The trio are wild and alluring, but they seem lost too—and like Rose, they're holding tight to painful secrets.
When they discover the spellbook, it changes everything. Damp, tattered and ancient, it's full of hand-inked charms to conjure back things that have been lost. And it just might be their chance to find what they each need to set everything back to rights.
Unless it's leading them toward things that were never meant to be found...
•REVIEW•
Once again, Moira Fowley-Doyle sends my head spinning with her bizarre and atmospheric storytelling. While I have to admit that I didn't love this one quite as much as her debut, The Accident Season, I did still find myself very much enchanted by this story and all of its magic and grit and mystery.
What shines most in this story, like in Accident Season, is the writing. Its absolutely beautiful. Even when the story turns a little gritty and wild, each word, each phrase just feels like it's not just written, it's orchestrated. You visualize all the weirdness, feel all the losses, shiver at every eerie moment.
The story is told in three POVs, but tells the tale of several more characters and, honestly, sometimes it was just plain hard to keep them all straight, both in remembering who was who and also who was talking in each chapter. And because the parallel stories are so similar, it was sometimes tricky to keep track of which was which---a little confusing at times but also lent itself to a strange dreamlike atmosphere, a foggy daze that keeps the reading guessing what could possibly be going on. Is it really magic? Is it all a trick? Are these characters all who they say they are? Or all having drunken hallucinations? ;)
The many characters that make up this story---Olive, Rose, Hazel, Rowan, Ivy, Holly, Ash, and Laurel---are all quite interesting in their own way, though some of their distinctions don't really shine until that ending when a few good twists knock the feet out from under you. I loved all their different strengths, their diversities, their faults, and their relationships, whether to each other or their families, or their pasts. I was intrigued by each one's need to find their own definition of home and family and love.
All in all, another captivating, mind- and heart-bending, mystical story from this author.
All in all, another captivating, mind- and heart-bending, mystical story from this author.
•ABOUT THE AUTHOR•
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Moïra Fowley-Doyle is half-French, half-Irish and lives in Dublin with her husband, their young daughters, and their old cat. Moïra's French half likes red wine and dark books in which everybody dies. Her Irish half likes tea and happy endings. Moïra started a PhD on vampires in young adult fiction before concentrating on writing young adult fiction with no vampires in it whatsoever. She wrote her first novel at the age of eight, when she was told that if she wrote a story about spiders she wouldn't be afraid of them anymore. Moïra is still afraid of spiders, but has never stopped writing stories. She is the author of The Accident Season and Spellbook of the Lost and Found.
Purchase Spellbook of the Lost and Found:
*GIVEAWAY*
Enter for a chance to be one (1) of three (3) winners to receive a hardcover copy of Spellbook of the Lost and Found by Moïra Fowley-Doyle. (ARV: $17.99 each).
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Enter between 12:00 AM Eastern Time on August 7, 2017 and 12:00 AM on August 28, 2017. Open to residents of the fifty United States and the District of Columbia who are 13 and older. Winners will be selected at random on or about August 30, 2017. Odds of winning depend on number of eligible entries received. Void where prohibited or restricted by law.
More great blog tour stops to visit!
Week One:
August 7 – ButterMyBooks – Book Photography
August 8 – Stories & Sweeties – Review
August 9 – Folded Pages Distillery
August 10 – Bibliophile Gathering – Review
August 11 – A Page With a View – Bookish Spells
Week Two:
August 14 – Icey Books – Spotlight & Book Photography
August 15 – The Fandom – A History of Mystical Objects in YA (and whether or not they can be trusted)
August 16 – Here’s to Happy Endings – Author Q&A
August 17 – Two Chicks on Books – Excerpt
August 18 – Ex Libris – Bookish Spells
Week Three:
August 21 – Once Upon a Twilight – Favorite Quotes
August 22 – Lost In Lit
August 23 – The Book Wars – Review
August 24 – Fiction Fare – Author Q&A
August 25 – Tales of the Ravenous Reader – Bookish Spells
