Just So Stories

Bloomsbury Australia

January 2025

ISBN	9781526642783
Imprint	Bloomsbury Children’s Books

RRP: $16.99

I enjoyed Sophie Kirtley’s debut novel The Wild Way Home tremendously back in 2020 and though I haven’t read the intervening books (one novel, one picture book), I had high expectations of this one. I was not disappointed.

This is another MG novel to capture the imaginations of astute readers, who will thoroughly enjoy the subtleties, the twists and turns, the clues to the mystery and the characters plus setting.

Edie and her little brother Pip are going to stay with their grandmother, Lolly, for a few days while their Mum is at a conference. The children have not visited the farm for years, and haven’t been there since their father died. For Edie, the memories are unbearable, and going to his childhood home just sharpens her pain.

But Edie is not the only one with memories rising up to haunt her. And at Fortune Farm, it’s not just the memories doing the haunting. There is a strange atmosphere to this place and the surrounding woods. And strange stories surround the area. There are whispering voices on the wind and runes appearing in the sky and in other places – they must all mean something. Long ago tales of Vikings, a Story Sword, mysterious happenings and secrets. All of this is made even more mysterious by the appearance of a girl of about Edie’s own age.

Edie knows her granny is holding in secrets, but she cannot fathom what or why. When she finds her Dad’s old diary she sees that he too had heard the same voices, seen the runes and started to search for answers. Will Edie be the one to find them? And will those answers and her journey to finding them, help her reconcile herself more to her father’s death?

It’s a full on mystery with a hefty twist of creepiness and readers from around Year 5 (or Year 4 if discerning/capable) will lap it up. Naturally, there’s nothing quite like a really terrifying ghost to make a twisty tale complete! Definitely a 5 ⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️ rating on this one.