The Storm and the Sea Hawk Written by Kiran Millwood Hargrave. Reviewed by Lilyana, Age 9

I really enjoyed reading this book and the adventures in it. The characters in this story never give up and keep on trying. It is about a girl who is on a quest, trying to find a magical human and if she finds it the Wolf Queen will let her sister free. She is determined to do so, on her way she meets people that can help her to succeed. Some she can trust but others…

I had read the first book in the Geomancer series already ‘In the Shadow of the Wolf Queen’, which I think is important as it set the scene and the characters were already familiar to me, but the two stories are equally brilliant in their own right.

I liked how the author created really inspiring characters. My favourite character was Eira because she was determined and kind; she gave her life to save her best friend. Eira ran away from her mum (The Wolf Queen) because her mum hated her and she hated her mum.

Ysolda finds her in her town in the previous book and then re-unites with her in the second as well. I also liked Ysolda because she was so eager to save her sister and put herself at risk of dying in the mountains. A boy called Sten journeys with her until she finds what she is looking for and tries to betray her but Ysolda’s sea-hawk manages to trick him into taking a rock and I think it is really clever that the author adds in that the sea-hawk can now speak to Ysolda and she can understand what it is saying.

The scenes were described amazingly and it made my imagination go wild with creativity and curiosity wanting to know what will happen next! The part where the children saw the mountains had so much detail that I was captured by the words.

I think this is a really innovative story that is based for older children that can read well. I would recommend this for children ages 11+, it used wider language. The moral of the story is no matter how tough things seem just keep on trying and never give up.