Archive for March 22, 2017

The Supernatural Pet Sitter
Diane Moat
(The Magic Thief, #1)
Publication date: March 5th 2017
Genres: Fantasy, Middle-Grade

Every animal can talk to you. You just have to know how to listen.

Pepper Neely is better at this than most, especially because she is in charge of pet sitting all the familiars in her neighborhood. A familiar is a pet magically linked to a witch or warlock. As a gnome, Pepper is no stranger to spells and sorcery. She also knows that, despite their special name, familiars aren’t all that different from regular animals. They get anxious when separated from their people, so Pepper uses her special gnome powers to calm them down. She watches Cranky the high-strung ferret, Frank the laid-back parrot, King Arthur the elderly tortoise, and many others.

Then, something terrible begins happening to the familiars. Someone is stealing their magic! It not only prevents Pepper from communicating with them but breaks their magical connection with their people. When King Arthur’s magic is stolen, his owner’s powers stop working too. Pepper can sense that the tortoise is very scared.

In order to protect the animal’s magic, Pepper decides to track down the culprit. With the help of her best friend, Luna, and her brother, Jax, Pepper fights to protect all of the special pets.

Goodreads / Amazon

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Enjoy the excerpt!

Familiars don’t do well when they are separated from their witches. That was how Pepper got into the business of pet sitting. Gnomes have a low-level connection with all supernatural animals. Gnomes are kind of like the Dog Whisperer, except that they communicate well with Familiars, basilisks (a magical lizard), unicorns and so on, rather than the more usual “pets”.

Pepper’s business of helping witches by taking care of their Familiars had boomed over the past year. Thank goodness she wasn’t sitting for the McCrorys last month when “it” happened.

Mr. McCrory was an accountant and Mrs. McCrory worked part-time at the downtown Dewitt Mall. Their two kids lived away at college. Mrs. M’s Familiar was a huge, bright-green-and-blue parrot named Frank. Pepper had only checked on the parrot once when the McCrorys drove their kids to their out-of-state campus several months earlier. Frank didn’t cause any trouble, so the job was easy money.

Supposedly, Mrs. M was at work one day last month when she had a “bad feeling” that prompted her to go home to check on Frank. The house seemed undisturbed, and everything looked fine at first. But when Mrs. M went to Frank’s cage, she found him looking away from her. He wouldn’t even turn around when she called his name. When she walked around the cage to greet Frank face-to-face, he had only ducked and bobbed his head the way a normal parrot would. But Frank wasn’t normal.

Next, Mrs. M had reached out to the Familiar with her magic, but got no response from him. Not only that, but she said she had trouble focusing, and even her own magic had felt weak. With hands trembling, she had picked up Frank to try again. Nothing. Since that day, Frank’s magic was gone, and Mrs. M’s magic was broken.


Author Diane Moat

Diane is a Tennessee transplant, animal rescuer, and nurse. Dog Gone is her debut novel, born from years of hearing animal rescuers say about animal abusers, “If only I could get my hands on that person…” Diane is assisted by her many rescue dogs.

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter



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16280909  17675468  18222550  18938102

Welcome to The Kid’s Korner.

I decided to do this feature as I have so many great children’s books to share. From picture books, to books for beginning readers, to middle graders, I have plenty of fun ones.

Today’s book is a thrilling adventure and I happened across this one at a resale store  I like to visit.

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Feeding Frenzy

Killer Species #2

by Michael P. Spradlin

17675468

Grade Level: 3-7 / Age Range: 8 – 12 years

Genre: Adventure / Science Fiction /

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My Review

I was in a favorite local thrift shop when I spotted the fabulous cover of this book. Being a huge fan of scary books about creatures from the deep, I quickly snatched it.

Emmet finally gets over his fear  of the water and goes snorkeling with his friends. They are quickly attacked by some monstrous creatures and barely make it back to shore alive.

Emmet is convinced that Dr. Catalyst, a crazy invasive species activist, is still alive and back in business. He better prove it soon, as more and more attacks occur.

It was nonstop action in this one. Genetically altered sea creatures released to eat the invasive lion fish. Only problem is they quickly turn to other food, including humans.. What could be scarier. Imagine crossing a barracuda, a shark, and an eel. The better to eat you up.

The characters are engaging and easy to like, or not, depending on whether they’re good guys or bad guys. The action is quick. And even though this is the second book in the series, the author quickly filled me in on past events using only a sentence here and a sentence there. Nothing to slow down my reading.

I scoured the library shelves when I was young, looking for stories just like this. It does get a bit creepy, but there’s no gore, so it’s appropriate for young readers. I’m sure they will eat it up.

Upon finishing this book I had to go see the other ones in the series. I noticed they all had fabulous covers too and all but this one featured Emmet’s courageous dog, Apollo. I guess he hasn’t learned how to scuba dive yet. LOL

This was such a fun book. Kept me on the edge and I’d recommend to anyone of any age that enjoys adventure and using their imagination.

5 Stars

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Synopsis

A brand-new action-packed series from Michael P. Spradlin. Each book covers a genetically engineered super-predator wreaking havoc on the environment.

Time has passed since anyone’s heard from Dr. Catalyst. Emmet and Calvin have even begun to think that the crazed scientist might be gone for good.

But then, on a trip to snorkel off the Florida coast, one of their friends is nearly drowned by an underwater monster, with endless rows of razor-sharp teeth. No one is quite sure what they saw. Was it a moray eel? A giant barracuda?

There’s only one thing Emmet knows for certain. Dr. Catalyst is back. And this time, he’s out for revenge.

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Click on the covers at the top of the post to check out all of the books in the series.

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Thanks so much for visiting fuonlyknew!

For a list of my reviews go HERE.

For a list of free eBooks updated daily go HERE

To see all of my giveaways go HERE