Saturday, March 22, 2014

The Luck Uglies by Paul Durham

Rye lives in Village Drowning with her mother.  The village is small and careful.  People stay in at night, no one wants to annoy the king or his henchmen, and friendships are tentative.  Bad has happened in this village before and they don't want to see it again.

HarperCollins and Edelweiss allowed me to download and read this book for review (thank you).  It will be published April 29th.  It's written for ages 8-12 but I loved it enough, I'm buying a copy for me.

One night when her mother goes out, Rye sneaks out and looks at the stars and listens to night noises.  When she sees something she doesn't recognize, she decides to investigate.  Wrong move, it's  Bog Noblin!

The Bog Noblins have returned and the whole Village is in living in fear.  These are giant ugly monsters that like to eat people and destroy homes.  How are the villages going to stop one?  They have no chance against three.  The last time they were in the village, the Luck Uglies stopped them.  But the King ran them off.

What I enjoyed was the odd names of the Noblins, how the King got his comeuppance, and how many of villagers were secret Luck Uglies.  There's lots of action, a traitor in the midst, and the bravest warrior of them all is the father that Rye has never known.

As the story progressed, I got more and more into the fantasy tale.  I was pleased to see the children got to help fight.  Who wants to stay safe when there's action out there?  This is a first rate tale and great fun to read.  Why don't you give it a try? 

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