A twelve-year-old grave thief gets caught up in a royal heist in this compelling middle-grade fantasy in the vein of Kelley Armstrong’s A Royal Guide to Monster Slaying.
Twelve-year-old Spade is a grave thief. With his father and brother, he digs up the recently deceased to steal jewels, the main form of trade in Wyndhail.
Digging graves works for Spade — alone in the graveyard at night, no one notices his limp or calls him names. He’s headed for a lifetime of theft when his father comes up with the audacious plan to rob a grave in the Wyndhail castle cemetery. Spade and his brother get caught in a royal trap, and Spade must find the master of the Woegan: a deadly creature stalking the castle by night.
Along the way, he meets Ember, the queen’s niece, and together they race to solve the mystery of the legendary Deepstones and their connection to the Woegan, the queen, a missing king and the mysterious pebble Spade finds in the Wyndhail cemetery.
This is a fantastic story of friendship, bravery, grief and acceptance.

This is a well-written, exciting story. I have to give credit to the author’s attention to detail and her skilled writing in describing both settings and characters’ reactions — helpful for the reader’s imagination.

A typical underdog story with lots of thrill, magic and mystery, I think its main appeal is the plot itself. It’s an engaging rags-to-riches story, the protagonist pitted against monsters and fictitious antagonists. I also love the supporting characters; they add fun and color. And the author does a great job of telling other characters’ sides of the story – who and why they are.

However, there are too many twists and turns; the story could have ended much earlier. The author opts to extend the story to the point of exhaustion. It goes into a set of chapters that create new subplot after new subplot, all of which could have been added in previous chapters.

Still, overall, it is a good and fun book. If you’re a fan of long reads of magic, realm and adventure, add it to your bookshelf.

• Kevin Velayo