The Lantern Menace [Kindle Edition]

Having read all of the previous books by Darren Craske, this one was a change from the Cornelius Quaint trilogy however was as gripping and fantastic a read as those preceding it. Once again, I skipped from page to page, with visual images portrayed through the words in this master wordsmiths natural style, even the fantasy creatures can be pictured as if they were real. And once again I was disappointed to come to the end of the book!

I would highly recommend this author and all his books to date, and I hope to continue reading more works of art as they are released.

The Lantern Menace is juvenile or young adult fiction so you may wonder what a fifty eight year old granddad is doing reviewing it. Well, I won a copy of the book on an excellent author's website and I knew that if she was promoting it there had to be something good about it.

And there's certainly more than something good. I'd describe it as great. It's great fun, has great pace and there's a great story there too. I've only read two fantasy novels before - The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings and, like those classics (and, I suspect many other fantasy books) The Lantern Menace involves a quest. Our young teenage heroes Finchley and Princess Castria set off with Rufus Lightfoot on their journey to recover a Limbo Lantern that holds pure evil (it's their fault that it's lost). They have plenty of exciting adventures along the way and the book is action packed throughout.

We usually associate the idea of fantasy with some sort of dark medieval atmosphere and, although there is an element of this - they journey by horse and cart - the language is up to date and the kids are very modern in their outlook; Castria goes for designer clothes and looks for her home decor in interior design magazines. This modernity adds a nice touch to the story and I love the way that author Darren Craske throws in plenty of jokes and clever asides (in brackets).

Although it's aimed at children, the book doesn't talk down to kids at all and uses a refreshingly advanced vocabulary - there's even a lepidopterist in there! Its written in a way that projects pictures into your head and I could see the action happening so vividly that I almost felt that I had watched a film rather than read a book (and what a good film it would make).

I know that both of my children would have loved this book and I'm absolutely sure that thousands of others will too.

What a brilliant book from Darren Craske, Once you start reading it, you don't want to put it down. I enjoyed all the twists and turns, great storyline. Bring on the next one.