Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe

  • Inkbound: Meticulous Jones and the Skull Tattoo – Phillipa Leathley

    Harper Collins Australia January 2025 While it took me a while to get to this on the review shelf, and then it’s taken me a few weeks to get the review written, it only took me two sessions to actually read this completely enthralling and wildly different fantasy. Meticulous – Metty – Jones, like most…

  • Eleanor Jones is Playing with Fire – Amy Doak

    Penguin Australia July 2025 Anyone who has read the first two Eleanor Jones books will know exactly how pleased I was when this one arrived. You would also know exactly why the first two titles have been so highly acclaimed. Amy Doak has a great grip on the whole YA crime/mystery genre with characters which…

  • The Haunting of Hindmarsh Hall – Kate Gordon

    Riveted Press Simon & Schuster April 2025 RRP: AU$ 16.99 / NZ$ 18.99 If you have kidlets who are mad for detectives and mystery, and particularly if they’re the ones who love an Enid Blyton ‘find-outer’ adventure, then you are going to need this one. In a small town of indeterminate location, two boys are…

  • In Plain Sight: Friday Barnes #13 – R. A. Spratt

    Penguin Australia It was quite synchronistic to get #13 Friday Barnes arriving on Friday 13th, I thought! And, needless to say, I promptly gobbled it up over two nights with much snickering and snort laughing [No R. A. Spratt is ever read without the snaughling!]. The Friday romp continues with our intrepid but ‘special’ detective,…

  • The Counterfeit Bust: Riz Chester – R.A. Stephens. Illustrated by Em Hammond.

    Rhiza Press/Wombat Books May 2023 SKU: 9781761111181 $12.99 Here’s a quick one to promote a series that only recently came my way. As always Wombat books have hit a nail squarely on the head with Riz Chester. She’s an ordinary kid, doesn’t do anything that’s remarkable, pretty average at school but she is observant. In…

  • Escape from Marigold Manor – Rachel Jackson

    For someone with a mild [understatement] addiction to cozy murder mysteries, this new Rachel Jackson Solve it Your Way was right up my alley. Not that I didn’t also enjoy the first in the series Escape from Cuttlefish Cove, but this one had the perfect setting and characters for my taste. In this new one,…

  • The Haunting of Fortune Farm – Sophie Kirtley

    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…