CHILDREN'S BOOK REVIEW: THE GRIFFIN GATE BY VASHTI HARDY

The Griffin Gate
Author: Vashti Hardy
Publisher: Barrington Stoke
Pages: 104
ISBN: 978-1-78112-943-2
Reviewed By: Sandra Scholes

This is Vashti's first Barrington Stoke title and the good news is its part of a series with The Puffin Portal coming soon. 

In The Griffin Gate, Grace Griffin and her family who are wardens who use a Teleportation map to get to the scene of a crime in an instant. The Griffin's have been wardens for generations, but it's Grace who feels invisible as she can't go on missions yet, even though her brother can, and she thinks she is a better fighter than him during their training sessions.

Grace is dying to go on a mission for real when she gets older, but will she have to live in her brother's shadow for long?

Vashti conjures a tale of family mystery where Grace is the third wheel when on a mission with her parents. Bren her brother gets all the praise, while she stays in the background, feeling unwanted and useless. Grace can only observe, which leads her to do something drastic! Use the map and go on a mission alone; the question is, can she handle it?

To be honest, I liked Grace's determination to show her family she had the skills to be able to fight crime and stop the culprits. Grace thinks she is ready when she answers a distress call from another village with her trustee Raven, Watson as her eyes and ears.

Watson is one of the best characters in the book, but what draws you in is the steampunk setting and the other villages that don't seem to be as technologically advanced as them. Where Grace has gone has a secret the townsfolk want to keep to themselves.

Vashti, author of Wildspark does all she can to make a thrilling debut with the Griffin family's youngest acts brave, intelligent and able to use her powers of deduction to find out the real baddies behind a dire plot that could see everything the Griffin's have done for the good of the village come to nothing. I felt the fear and sense of urgency from reading Grace's exploits in this village, hoping she wouldn't get caught. I wanted her to solve the crime and find out who would want to cause so much trouble for her family. This book is a really riveting read ready for Halloween!