Mind blowingly good! The Lilac–ooh, sends shivers down your spine, doesn’t it? Well, it should since she is the most fearsome bounty hunter in the world…or will be as soon as she and her best friend (and bard), Dulcinetta actually bounty someone.
Enter monster hunter extraordinaire, Baron Angbar and his missing, maybe magical, but at the very least family heirloom, emerald axe, which his butler is ordered to hire The Lilac to bring it back to Castle Angbar. (Whew-now THAT was a run-on sentence, spoiler alert; it won’t be the last!) You must forgive me, dear reader, this book is so awesome that I cannot sum it up any other way.
Now, back to the plot–butler finds The Lilac, search for axe begins, search leads our intrepid group back to Castle Angbar where, of course, everyone is mysteriously, and most definitely, magically sealed inside the Castle with the murderer, and The Lilac must become the bounty hunter she is destined to be and solve it before they all get very, very dead. Lots of hilarity, skulduggery, magic things magically happening, secrets revealed, plots twisted and epic songs written and loudly sung as the plot thickens (or the thick plottens-I’ve heard it both ways).
This was such a good book. The publisher calls it “fantasy-mystery” and it is just that, a very well done mix of fantasy and mystery for middle grades that is readable for anyone. As you can see, I enjoyed it very much and award 4 big fat stars and add it to the list of books you ‘otter’ be reading. I was given a copy for my review–thank you #NetGalley