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Friday 6 August 2010

Blackhope Enigma by Teresa Flavin

Made me wonder
Review by TheMole

A story of three children who chance upon a fantastic discovery that takes them into perils and situations that leave the reading reeling and thinking. Sunni and Doran visit Blackhope tower, a museum that has an intriguing clause in the bequest that 1 room, the Mariners Chamber, may have no changes made to it whatsoever. Over the years this has been honoured and the room houses a fine painting by Fausto Corvo - an artist with colourful story. There they meet Blaise and while Sunni and Blaise talk about the painting and the artist, Doran gets bored. And so begins a fast paced and fascinating tale that left me wondering.... How do authors like Teresa Flavin come up with such imaginative plots? How do they extend a simple idea to all the complexities that they do? And how do they do it so well? The characters vary in their depth with the 'good guys' being better developed than the 'bad guys'. Whether this is because the author is a naturally 'good guy' or whether it's to stop the reader becoming attached to the baddies I don't know but whatever it is it did leave me, throughout the reading, remembering that this is a 'tweens' age group book (I have a 13 year old and I can see her enjoying it). Some children's books you lose track of the age group it was intended for because of the way it is written (not because of it's content). This recognition of it's age group did not detract from my enjoyment of the book though. I found it to be well plotted, well written and paced beautifully for the younger reader. Highly recommended!


TheMole's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Templar Publishing
Genre - Children's 10+

Buy The Blackhope Enigma from Amazon

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