A few years ago, I regularly used to go to a yoga class on a Monday evening and at the last one of the year, our teacher brought up the subject of New Year and how excited she was. Being the eternal pessimist that I am, I said that I don’t like New Year because usually I don’t have anything to look forward to in the next 12 months and I really couldn’t get excited about it – something that she just couldn’t get her head around. That was at the end of 2019 and we all know what happened next.
As we hurtle towards 2024 though, I am feeling more optimistic – at least as to where children’s reads are concerned. I am already anticipating the release of some amazing books next year and – even better – there are those which I know nothing about and will be a delightful surprise. This new read is one such title which I knew nothing about before it arrived a few days ago and having loved the author’s debut read The Weather Weaver (you can read my review here) I threw caution to the wind and made it my next read. A gripping and exciting adventure, this middle grade fantasy is one that I thoroughly enjoyed and one that has left me yearning for Book 2 as it ticked so many boxes for me and I know it will for many other readers.
Arriving at his late grandmother’s house, Gargoyle’s Rest, Callen does not share the same sense of excitement as his father, who is battling to open the gate that will allow them access. Impressed by the building’s size, but not by its rundown state or having been forced to leave his friends to move in here, Callen gloomily helps his parents unload their car and puzzles over his new surroundings, including a rack of swords on the entrance hall wall and a ballroom, the doors to which have been nailed shut. Exploring the house, Callen comes across a room which has clearly been occupied but not by his nan and admires the sketches of gargoyles that have been pinned up before poking about in the drawers of a writing desk and finding a journal which he hastily hides under his jumper when his mother comes to find him.
Callen’s mood fails to improve when his mother takes him up to the top floor room that is to be his and looking out of the window he takes an instant dislike to the gargoyle that is perched on the ledge outside – something he calls a monster but his father tells him is guarding the window when he enters the room. Asking Dad why he has never visited the house before, Callen is told that his father and grandmother had a falling out but after her death he realised he needed to make some changes and brought the family here – something Callen attributes to a midlife crisis.
Deciding he can survive one night in the room, Callen later settles down to look at the journal before he goes to sleep and looks at a picture of a different gargoyle on its first page and vows to look for it in the morning in the hopes of learning something about the journal’s owner. During the night though he is woken by strange scratching noises above his head but when he goes to the window to see if he can spot anything, he is taken aback by the realisation that the gargoyle is no longer sitting there. The following morning, he looks out again only to find the gargoyle has returned and he spots a plaque naming it as Zariel. Examining the journal again, Callen finds a map of the estate embellished with strange symbols and determines to investigate. Before long, he discovers that the house and its surroundings are filled with magic – magic that in the wrong hands will threaten not just Callen and his family but everyone else nearby. Can Callen work out how to befriend Zariel and gain her trust to enable him to become a Guardian and prevent the magic being abused or are his family and the house destined to succumb to the most malevolent of forces?
Gargoyle’s Rest and its surroundings are the perfect setting for this brilliant fantasy. Creepy and crumbling away in parts, the large country house hides all manner of mysteries from the nailed-up ballroom doors to the strange symbols that adorn the map that Callen finds. As he is drawn further and further into his adventure, he is befriended by three of the children who live on his family’s estate, whose knowledge of the magic that he discovers is far ahead of his own and this pushes him to put himself and them into enormous danger as he tries to catch up in his haste to become a Guardian.
Readers will really take to Callen. At the start of the story, and for much of the book, he is very ordinary – just like most of us, in fact. Initially resentful at having his life turned upside down on what appears to be the most spurious of reasons to him, he quickly realises that there is more to the house than bricks and mortar and that his father, who grew up in Gargoyle’s Rest, is holding secrets not just from him but also his mother. As he unpicks what he finds, Callen increasingly questions his father’s actions and disobeys his parents’ rules in his quest to find the truth and prevent a catastrophe – something that I greatly admired him for.
The first in a new series, I know I will not be the only one looking forward to a second outing for Callen and Zariel and I am enormously grateful to publicist Antonia Wilkinson and UCLan Publishing for my gifted review copy. Gargoyles: Guardians of the Source publishes 4th April.
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