{"id":7758,"date":"2020-07-19T19:15:05","date_gmt":"2020-07-19T23:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=7758"},"modified":"2020-07-19T19:15:05","modified_gmt":"2020-07-19T23:15:05","slug":"book-review-the-language-of-ghosts-by-heather-fawcett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-the-language-of-ghosts-by-heather-fawcett\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: The Language of Ghosts by Heather Fawcett"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"cover<\/a><\/p>\n

The Language of Ghosts<\/em> by Heather Fawcett (\u00a0Bookshop.org <\/a> | Amazon.com <\/a>)<\/p>\n

Balzer + Bray, 2020<\/p>\n

ISBN-13: 978-0062854544<\/p>\n

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD (pre-order)<\/p>\n

Princess Noa Marchena and her sister Mite escape a deadly palace coup with their older brother, now king, Julian, a dark magician with command of all nine languages of magic.\u00a0 Since dark magicians have been known to lose themselves to dark magic, Noa makes it her business to act as Julian’s conscience. Hidden away on a moving island protected by a sea serpent, Julian plans his return to his country and his throne.\u00a0 Then he learns that Xavier, the leader of the coup, is killing all dark magicians in his kingdom and is seeking the lost languages of magic in order to find a magician who can use them to defeat Julian. The Marchenas discover one before Xavier; the language of ghosts, which Noa names Shiver. The language of ghosts allows someone who can use it to travel through the land of death, and to see and speak to ghosts. The ability to read and understand it is rare, but Noa, until then without magical abilities, discovers that she is able to understand it.<\/p>\n

What with the suspenseful palace coup and dark magicians, at the beginning and a title like The Language of Ghosts,<\/em> I expected a little more spookiness to the story. It’s been compared to\u00a0Howl’s Moving Castle,<\/em> and it does have a magically moving island and a crabby magician, but it doesn’t have the depth or humor of that book.\u00a0 It is more likely to appeal to fans of Jessica Day George than it is to readers of Mary Downing Hahn. The Language of Ghosts <\/em>is\u00a0an okay middle-grade fantasy with a few genuinely suspenseful moments, enjoyable but not outstanding and certainly not as ghosty as I expected it to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Language of Ghosts by Heather Fawcett (\u00a0Bookshop.org | Amazon.com ) Balzer + Bray, 2020 ISBN-13: 978-0062854544 Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD (pre-order) Princess Noa Marchena and her sister Mite escape a deadly palace coup with their older brother, now king, Julian, a dark magician with command of all nine languages of magic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2474,473,4514,2407,4513],"class_list":["post-7758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-book-review","tag-fantasy-fiction","tag-heather-fawcett","tag-middle-grade-fiction","tag-the-language-of-ghosts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7758"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7777,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7758\/revisions\/7777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}