Today I’m so pleased to welcome you to my stop on the tour for Feast of the Evernight, a brilliant middle grade fantasy which is the second installment in the Evernight series. I feel extra lucky to have been given the chance to read this book and have enjoyed it so much, even more than the original Evernight, lol. 🙂 I want to say a big thank you to Rob Farrimond for the copy of the book and chance to be on this tour and I hope you enjoy my review below. 🙂 Don’t forget to also check out the other stops on the blog tour!
Title: Feast of the Evernight (Evernight #2)
Author: Ross MacKenzie
Illustrator: Amy Grimes
Publisher: Andersen Press
Genre: Older children’s/middle grade fiction, Fantasy
Book format: Paperback
Sweet Strawberries: 
Description: The Evernight has been defeated and the sun has returned, thanks to Larabelle Fox and her friends Joe and Double Eight. White Witches have their souls back and Mrs Hester is no more. It should be a time of celebration and relief.
But a new threat is emerging from the mists of the Veil, the dangerous forest that surrounds the Silver Kingdom’s southern lands. Mysterious killings are taking place, and Double Eight is the suspect. Lara and Joe journey to Lake End to discover what’s really happening, all the while trying to stay one step ahead of the secret police . . .
*Free copy provided by publisher for review…
Review: This is such a magical story and I loved it so much more than the first book! After defeating the Evernight Lara has been spending the last year training to become a proper witch before leaving her home in Westerly Witch in order to be mentored. But some terrible things are happening in the sourthern lands of the Silver Kingdom, and Lara’s mentor soon has her helping to find a killer, someone she might know.
This is such an interesting story and so compelling to read that I just couldn’t put this down and ended up reading almost all of it in one sitting! A year after the Evernight was defeated the king is planning a celebration, a feast, to celebrate the overcoming of the evil and darkness. But a killer is out there on the loose and Lara and her mentor Ginny do everything they can to find the killer and stop them before they hurt someone else. I love how brillint this story is and how much depth there is to what happens. As Lara goes on her new journey of being mentored, as her friend Double Eight did before her, her other friend Joe has his own journey to go on separately from Lara.
There is a lot happening in the story but there is never any confusion and all the individual stories end up coming together to form what feels like a brilliant and epic tale. While Lara and Joe travel south from Westerly Witch and then go on their individual journeys which are both interesting and exciting, we’re introduced to new characters Ivy and Karl Younger who I couldn’t help but love as the new villian of the story. I really enjoyed how this new character was introduced and what happens with him later in the story. The way some chapters, especially earlier on were written about him, he just feels like a brilliant villain for the story. I enjoyed Ivy’s character too, especially what happens to her with her magical abilities and how important she becomes to the story and the other characters later.
As the story continues we learn more about this killer and I couldn’t help but love how interesting and creepy this part of the story is. What happens and who is thought responsible is interesting and I did find myself feeling shocked and amazed more than once when I found out what was really happening. The descriptions of some of the story feel quite creepy and a little dark considering how eerie and weird the killings end up being. I’m not sure if I felt as creeped out with the first book as I did with this one but this really did feel like a good book that I just couldn’t put down, as I desperately wanted to know what would happen to all of the characters.
Although the story frequently changes viewpoint, as I said it’s never confusing and in fact it felt like I was watching a movie, with so many different things happening but all connected in some ways. Although I remembered the previous book and a lot of the details of how magic worked I had forgotten how clever and different the way spells are cast and I liked the unique way the wands fire spells, a little like a gun. Some of the spells were interesting too and I couldn’t help but like the locator spell and what happens when it’s cast. The new location of the book, much of it taking place in Lake End was interesting too, I enjoyed the new area with its more rural, wild and wild west feel.
The book has such a good ending with a lot of tension and build up and a great few twists which I didn’t see coming, including the big reveal which completely surprised me! I just love how this story went and what happens with all the characters, even though I felt some mixed emotions reading this as there are some truly wonderful happy, funny and some very sad moments too. The ending is good and completes the story well with no loose ends and although the last pages don’t hint at another book in the series I do really hope there is another one being written as I just want to find out even more about the characters including Lara’s family and past which was hinted at but not fully explored in the first book. The final pages are good though they again left me with mixed emotions over how the story ends, both a happy ending but sad with the way that the characters are growing moving on.
The book has some lovely images at the start of each chapter which hint at something that happens in that chapter, as well as an absolutely gorgeous cover! The story has some mentions of killings which might be a little too creepy and gruesome for younger readers although I don’t believe any of it is too scary for older children to read. The fact that this book has not only Karl Younger as the typicall villain but also the interesting and creepy tale of the killer and who it might be, this just felt like a much more compelling book than the first and I would urge anyone who loves a magical story to check this one out, even if you had mixed feelings over the first book like I did.
I really hope there will be a third book to this series and will be eagerly waiting if there is! This is such an interesting and creepy story and one which I have enjoyed so much. I just can’t wait to read what I hope will be another book in the series and I can’t wait to see what happens to Lara and all her friends, both old and new! This is definitely a book I’d recommend although you may want to read the first book to understand who all the chracters are and what happened with the Evernight.
-Read review of book 1 – Evernight by Ross MacKenzie
I hope you enjoyed my stop on the tour today and please do check out the book and series as well as the other stops on this tour! 🙂
What do you think of this book? Have you read the first book in the series? Let me know what you think in the comments below 🙂
The Strawberry Post 
What a beautiful book! Brilliant review, glad you enjoyed it so much!
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Thank you, it really is a lovely cover isn’t it 🙂
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