Super excited to share this one with you guys! Why? Because it is my first review request! :) Now that these are coming in, I'm going to have to spend more time reading. Which is totally possible now that we got rid of cable and rely on DVDs that I checkout from work. *Side note- Did you know you can check out movies from your local library? If you didn't, you do now! Why spend extra money on movie rentals when you can get them for free at the library?! And it's new releases too! okay, back to the review*

Mr. Craske emailed me at the end of May (yes, yes I know it took a long time to get to it) and I finished it Monday night. Now that I have Kindle for WP7 and the Freda app on my phone, I will definitely be reading more ebooks. Anywho, to the review!


Summary: A princess (Castria) and a stable-boy (Finch) steal a magical lamp from Rufus Lightfoot, a spell-crafter. Little did they know the lamp held the soul of D'Monica Grace, a powerful witch that once brought great chaos to the land. When the Limbo Lamp is taken from the two teenagers, the three set out on a quest to destroy the with before she can resurrect herself and destroy the Wold. Along the way, Finch learns more about who he is than he ever could have imagined.

Goodreads Summary: (only because it gives more detail than mine) Princess Castria is a hurricane in a tiara that pushes her royal powers (and her best friend Finch Balfour’s nerves) to their absolute limits with her pranks. But when she steals a dusty old lantern belonging to a one-eyed wizard, not only has she put the kingdom of Fanthia at risk, there’s a distinct possibility that the Wold itself might be in danger…

Castria has no idea that the lantern contains the incarcerated soul of D’Monica Grace: the witch single-handedly responsible for the darkest period in the Wold’s history – and now it has fallen into Fanthia’s most hated enemies’ hands, with plans to reconstitute the ultimate evil into flesh, blood and bone once more.

Along with Fanthia’s resident spell-crafter, Rufus Lightfoot, the troublesome princess (with Finch swept up in her wake) must set forth on a race against time to retrieve the lantern before D’Monica’s soul is reborn and the Wold is plunged into despair. It’s going to be an impossible journey with danger and betrayal at every turn, and many factions conspiring against Finch and Castria, determined to see them fail…

My thoughts: I'm not big on fantasy novels, usually because there are so many irregular names and places. But I was surprised with the ease of Craske's writing. There were a few times, mostly in the first few chapters, that I wanted to give up on the novel; however, I am glad I continued on. The novel quickly caught up to the adventure that was at hand. I doubt I will fall in love with the fantasy genre as I have with others, but The Lantern Menace was a welcoming novel to the genre and a pleasurable break from my normal reads.

My only problem with the novel, besides a few blatant typos but that is not Craske's fault, was that some phrases he used seemed out of place with the time and location. Although I understood them, I don't think there were appropriate for the setting and characters. BUT there were only a few, so I could easily look past them to enjoy the novel.