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Fishfolk by Steven Quincey-Jones is a challenging book, both in terms of language and story. I think it’s probably easiest if I just take a few points in turn…

Language:
This is almost like reading prose poetry. Which is nice, if that’s what you’re into. I enjoyed it, but neither of my children – both of whom can (and have) read classics – read past the first few pages. It’s not that the vocabulary is difficult, but it’s playful – it lends an ‘otherness’ to that tale that really, really helps with worldbuilding. But that strong voice isn’t easy to read – words are conjugated unusually, idioms are muddied, and the actual reading process requires work as a result. If you’re not used to working for your stories, then I can imagine this feeling like a slog (though like I said – I enjoyed it, and the voice really lent itself to the mood of the world).

In short, it doesn’t feel like language for children.

Story:
Aside from the general, all-purpose hardship of life on a sinking land, after a flood, there are some REALLY dark moments in here. A toddler dies and children are left to bury him. An abusive Grandfather is left to sink in quicksand after having gaslit the main characters for the whole of their lives.

In short, it feels like a book about children, for adults.

Overall:
It’s an objectively brilliant book. It tugs on memories of dark fairy-tales – HC Andersen’s Little Mermaid, rather than the Disney one. It feels like it could take place in the uncertainty of a climate-crisis future, but there are shades of Michelle Paver’s Chronicles of Ancient Darkness to it too – like it might be the journey of ancestors. But as above, this story feels so grown-up. For a book labelled ‘middle grade’ I definitely felt like the content was perhaps a bit too old for the audience.

I loved the quirky layout. I loved the mythic quality. I loved the voice, and the mood. The artwork was brilliant. The whole thing felt like folk horror and I’d be quick to recommend to fans of Tom Cox’s ‘Help The Witch’. There’s a Gothic undertone which my Frankenstein-fan heart just found delicious. But. 

I’d probably only recommend to adults or older children – 14+. 

I would absolutely love to hear your take on darker stories for younger children.

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Huge thanks to the Write Reads blog tour team for sending us a copy of Undine’s Blessing by Tessa Hastjarjanto.

This story follows Marella as she heads to sea with her father, after her mother is forced to travel to receive proper medical care. Marella’s mother’s illness reads a lot – to me at least – like chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and given the author’s experience, this would make sense (see bio below).

The fact that Marella is a young carer is dealt with sensitively and sympathetically – she doesn’t resent her mother’s condition or the amount of work she has to do in comparison to the other children she knows. She works hard to protect her mother, and in the world that Hastjarjanto has created, disability seems to be looked on in a much kinder light than modern-day Britain. It’s an incredibly refreshing thing to read.

The worldbuilding of Undine’s Blessing is something that really struck me from the outset. As someone who has spent a lot of time in fishing communities in rural Scotland, the descriptions of Marella’s daily life felt real and familiar, and the descriptions are beautiful. I can see people arguing that the plot takes a while to get going, but I didn’t mind spending a few chapters with Marella and her mother in their home, before she sets out to sea with her father.

My main criticism of this book is small; some of the language seemed jarringly modern at times. It’s one thing having a character use the word ‘kids’ to describe a group of children, but it alters the tone of third person narration when it happens in the main body of the prose. This is a small complaint, but it did make the story feel slightly less immersive for me. And this is a ‘unique to UK-English speakers’ problem, but the same happened when I read the word ‘Mom’ (albeit to a lesser extent).

Overall though, this was a lovely book – absolutely full of magic.

Book Details

Length: 298 Pages

Genre: Fantasy

Age Category: Young Adult

Date Published: January 27, 2024

Amazon Link: https://a.co/d/3A6CTUC (Canada) https://a.co/d/cFNzg3k (USA) https://amzn.eu/d/iR6Injk (UK)

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199001923-undine-s-blessing 

The Story Graph Link: 

https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/acdc824e-225e-40be-9778-03566593b1cb

Author Bio

Tessa Hastjarjanto is a Dutch/Indonesian writer from the Netherlands. She writes speculative fiction, and blogs at narratess.com about books, fountain pens, and writing.

From a young age, she imitated popular stories and games in creating her own worlds. This love eventually led to a master’s degree in media and game studies at the University of Utrecht. However a mundane desk job was enough to inspire her to follow her creative passion. The first fanfics were written in lunch breaks and soon original fiction followed.

With the support of her husband, she now focuses on her writing career while battling chronic pain. Swiss white shepherd, Shiro, acts as a therapy dog to keep her healthy and reduce stress through extensive cuddle sessions.

You can find her on Twitter (@endalia), Instagram (@tessa.hastjarjanto), or on Bluesky (@endalia.bsky.social).

Undine’s Blessing was the 12th place finalist in BBNYA 2024!

About BBNYA

BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists (16 in 2024) and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads. 

… but I signed a book contract!!

I am so proud, and so excited to say that When The Giants Passed Through is coming out in 2026 with Northodox Press!

I wrote what I affectionately call ‘Giants’ in a month in 2020. I had no intention of trying to get it published – I wrote it for the love of writing. When people asked what I’d been up to, I mentioned it in passing, along with the fact that I’d been doing yoga.

Then friends and family started asking to read it, and eventually, about an hour before the deadline, my oldest friend sent me a link to the Kelpies Prize 2022. In between handing in essays, I threw together an entry and, thinking that nothing would come of it… of course, something did….

During my (amazing) mentorship with the Kelpies team, I worked on ‘Giants’. And eventually, it got to the point where it was ready to submit it to publishers.

But then I stalled.

I’m not really sure why. Perhaps it was due to the fact that university got exponentially more time-consuming as I progressed through my course, or perhaps the pace of life just sped up to the point where I didn’t have the bandwidth to contemplate submission packages.

Either way, not very much happened until Northodox announced they were opening a submission window. Having read and absolutely loved their book ‘Abraxus Elijah Honey’ by Ella Ruby Self, I knew that they’d be the perfect home for ‘Giants’.

And it looks like they thought so too!

I’ll be posting more here as news unfolds – I’m so excited to share this book with you all.

For now… here’s a teaser….