“Remember to look from all angles, see with your heart and believe in yourself.” – 4.25/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: keys, patches, apples, domes, velvet hats, rivers, swords, winds, beards, seagulls, portals, giants and a fox domovoi.

Olia lives with her parents in an old crumbling castle, filled with hidden turrets and secret doorways. When she follows a mysterious cat to one of the castle’s roof domes, she finds herself stepping through one such doorway into a magical land filled with wonders… But everything is not quite as it seems: the land is under threat from a scheming magician, Chernmor, and the magic is fading away.

With the help of an enchanted band of new friends, can Olia find a way to save both her own home, and the land of forbidden magic?

This was such a cute book! I don’t know why I usually have such a hard time getting into middle grade books, but this one grabbed my attention and it became the best I have ever read.

It’s such a creative story that you’ll keep reading until you’re finished with the book. One cool thing about it is that it is themed after slavic folklore – this was my first time reading about it, and it was really interesting! The characters were amazing and I loved that even though they were all so different, they worked together to help Olia. Olia was an amazing, strong main character! She was a very brave little girl who was always ready to help the others. 

And the illustrations… my God, the illustrations were beautiful! Saara Soderlund is the illustrator and she did an amazing job with this book. It really brought the story to life!

What I liked the most from this book was definitely the lessons behind the story. Lessons such as “belief is a very powerful thing” and “magic is everywhere” are only a few of the lessons this book teaches.

It’s beautifully written, full of details and magical touches! You can tell the author really took her time with this book, because you can feel the love through the pages. I would recommend this for the entire family.

xoxo,