Title: The Goblin’s Winter
Series: Witchbone #1
Author’s Name: Alex Norton
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Children’s Fantasy
Page Count: 352 Pages
ISBN: 978-1718091306
Author or Book Website: N/A
Link to Amazon purchase page: The Goblin’s Winter
Link to Goodreads: The Goblin’s Winter
Release Date: N/A
How I Got the Book: Review Copy
Summary of the Book:
The town of Eddystone, New Hampshire is locked in the icy grip of extreme winter temperatures, an arctic cold spell unheard of there for over a hundred years.
Danny Hallow, an eleven-year-old boy with a cryptic and closely guarded family history, is brought to Eddystone by his three Keepers. He’s been summoned for the reading of his uncle Enoch Wildwood’s will, a strange and reclusive man Danny didn’t even know existed until his sudden and mysterious demise.
While staying at his family’s ancestral estate of Gnomewood Home, Danny gets more than he bargained for in his uncle’s will and learns his family is even more unusual than he realized. He’s inherited some potentially dangerous genetic abilities and finds out that some people in the town of Eddystone think he should never have been born at all.
To add to his troubles, the deep cold has brought a horde of small, enigmatic creatures out of hiding. Small predators that are sneaky, vicious and hungry. Predators that take an interest in Danny.
With the help of some new friends and Eddystone’s most reviled outcast, Danny attempts to solve the riddle of the malevolent creatures that are plaguing the small seacoast town and its denizens. Along the way, he begins to explore his own emerging abilities and attempts to unravel the complicated web of his family’s secrets, kept hidden for centuries within the crumbling brick walls of Gnomewood Home.
If you enjoy the fantasy and friendship of the Harry Potter series or appreciate the wicked dark fun present in the works of Neil Gaiman, Dan Poblocki or John Bellairs, you may also like Witchbone: The Goblin’s Winter. This is the first entry in a series about the strange adventures of Danny Hallow, for all readers who love psychic kids, goblins, ghosts, witches, mysteries & fairy tales. Not purely horror, fantasy or science fiction, it contains elements of all three.
While this is a simple story about kids vs. monsters (human and otherwise) larger themes include the importance of friendship and family (especially when you, your family and friends are atypical), dealing with the expectations that are placed upon us by others and the overall concepts of good and evil.
My Personal Review: I received a copy of this book for a fair and honest review. This is the first book in the Witchbone series. It centers around Danny who it is hinted at that he was bullied. He is taken north by his keepers to the reading of a will. He finds friendship at his new school. The book gets darker and stranger as it goes along. I can’t wait to see what takes place next. There is a lot of pressure put on Danny and what he has to do. I found the estate a little creepy.
My Rating of the Book: 4 Stars.
From the Book Reviewer's Desk 