toblerowl 's review for:

The Crowns of Croswald by D.E. Night

4.5

adventurous funny hopeful mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

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 Ivy Lovely has a miserable life as a maid in the Castle Plum, though she has always dreamt of and drawn another mysterious castle. When she loses her job (and gains a small pet dragon which was so cute), she leaves the slurry fields surrounding the Castle Plum and begins her adventures taking her to a magical school where she learns more about her own magical abilities while making friends and enemies. 

The world of Croswald is a fascinating one. The book is crammed full of details of creatures, magical spells and artefacts, snippets of mysterious history. Often these only get a  brief mention in this book but it makes the whole world feel very well-established and, as this is the first in a series, I look forward to learning more about the world in future books.

The story rattles along at breakneck speed, so much happens and I read it very quickly as it was really engaging. Some elements are quite familiar to readers of middle grade fantasy (an orphan with mysterious powers and an unknown origin, we know where this story is going) but that is not a criticism at all. This is a genre I love and I really enjoyed this book. I will say that Ivy is supposed to be 16, which seems a little old for a middle grade main character though on the whole she pretty much acts like a much younger child. I didn’t really care about the romance subplot but that’s just my own personal preference. The mystery of the opening prologue is not really resolved by the end of the book, Ivy has only just been reunited with a key character so presumably the rest of the series will explore and explain what is going on in Croswald and Ivy’s part in putting it right. I will definitely be reading the rest of this series to see what awaits Ivy next and look forward to learning more about its magic.

Thank you to Netgalley, D.E. Night and Stories Untold for a review copy of this book in return for an honest review.