Book Review: Sara Supernatural-Half a World Away by Tiffany Belcher

April 19, 2016 by rachelauthorbarnard in Book Review and tagged fantasy, Middle Grade, Sara Supernatural, Sara Supernatural-Half a World Away, Tiffany Belcher, YA

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Sara Supernatural-Half a World Away by Tiffany Belcher

A Middle Grade/YA Fantasy Novel published by Tate Publishing (01/19/16)

Summary:

Sara is back! She has lots of plans for a summer full of fun with Chris, her magical partner from book one, but alas his family is moving him across the world. An intriguing set of twins Sara’s age moves into Chris’s house and they want to be friends with Sara, but there’s something altogether not right about these two girls. Chris told Sara not to use her magic while he’s away, but she can’t just sit on her butt and do nothing when the twins and Jessica gossip behind her back about her. She must get to the bottom of what is really going on.

Keywords:

Magic, wishing, powers, female main character, lessons learned, school, immaturity, selfishness, greed, fitting in, twins, mysterious neighbors, evil plot, friendship, invisibility

My Review:

The best part of this story was the mystery with the twins that was continued throughout the book. I wanted to understand what was going on and I was super ready for the big reveal at the end! The twins were dynamic and kept changing their tactics. They were odd, yet almost fit in most of the time. They were socially awkward until they did something exactly like a teenager would, like gossiping and spreading rumors about Sara’s friends.

I loved how Sara was uncertain about the twins. She didn’t just believe their intentions and words, but she didn’t completely disregard them as friends. She kept them at arms’ length the entire time, taking what they said with a grain of salt, just like the clever teen she showed us she was in book one. But Sara isn’t perfect and her fault lies in trying to solve all her problems herself, getting deeper and deeper into trouble.

Sara’s two friends were also well written. The story had less of Chris than book one, but I didn’t mind because I was caught up in the mysterious twins and Sara’s rapidly growing problems.

I was surprised at the amount of dropped and missing words in this book. More than a handful of articles were missing from sentences, but the writing was still very readable, despite these typos.

This novel was published by Tate Publishing on January 19th, 2016 and is available on Amazon here.

TL;DR Star Rating: 4.25

Links for more information:

Tiffany Belcher’s Website

Book Event at Third Place Books with Tiffany Belcher 03/12/16

March 14, 2016 by rachelauthorbarnard in Local Authors, Local Events, Miscellaneous Mondays and tagged Sara Supernatural, Tiffany Belcher

What an exciting author event this past Saturday! I’ve read Tiffany Belcher’s first book, Sara Supernatural, and loved it and now the second in the series is available. I observed the event to get good ideas for my own Third Place Books event in June.

Here’s what I learned: The Den seats about 26. They have a projector and screen available. They have a nice podium and sound system. People can’t see this area from the door, so a big sign and arrow would be handy.

Here are some neat pics I took from the event. I loved seeing Tiffany Belcher again and she had quite the lovely, entertaining, and useful presentation.

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Throwback to when I first met Tiffany and bought her first book at St. James Espresso in Kirkland… 04/15/2015

Book Review: Sara Supernatural by Tiffany Belcher

April 23, 2015 by rachelauthorbarnard in Book Review and tagged fantasy, Middle Grade, Sara Supernatural, Tiffany Belcher, YA

Sara Supernatural by Tiffany Belcher

A Middle Grade/YA Fantasy Novel published by Tate Pubishing (10/29/13)

Summary:

When Sara makes the wish for her freckles to disappear for the hundredth time, she doesn’t expect her wish to come true. She’s a redhead with freckles and everyone knows that boys don’t like girls with freckles except Sara meets Chris and he likes her freckles. Shoot! Now she needs them back. Sara and her two best friends Ashely and Jessica realize that Sara has the power to wish for whatever she wants, but with this power comes great repercussions. Sara makes a mess of things with her accidental wishes and they aren’t all as easy to fix as wishing for her freckles back.

Keywords:

Magic, wishing, powers, female main character, lessons learned, romance, fourteen-year olds, middle school, immaturity, selfishness, greed, fitting in, being the best, cheating

My Review:

Sara was a great main character. Though she was only fourteen and in middle school, she was mature and interesting even though she did fall into some typical teenage behavioral patterns. Sara wanted the perfect life and the perfect family, complete with perfect outfits and style. She didn’t try to match her wishes with her reality until she is granted the power to make her dreams come true without any effort. She has only to wish and voile, wish granted. Not every wish should be fulfilled, and Sara learns this the hard way. Sara has the ability to fix her mistakes the whole time, it is learning that she made a mistake and why there are consequences to certain wishes that makes the story.

I liked that the author gives us multiple characters with their own parts to play in the story. There’s Ashley, the picky one, who is not always confident in what she’s doing. There’s Jessica, who grew up spoiled and doesn’t always know how to put others first or to think of someone other than herself. There’s Chris, the boy who was raised to take care of himself.

Any time there’s magic involved, I appreciate a good answer for where and how the magic came to be. Belcher, about midway through the book, gives an explanation for the magic in two levels, where it originated from in the beginning and how Sara got her wishing abilities. The author also quantifies the extent the magic has on altering reality and how far Sara can go in its use, which I really appreciated. Defining the magic made it and the story more real.

The dialogue was a pleasure to read and the author really captured some more witty teenage moments full of snippy sarcastic teen talk without being overly dramatic or too grammatically poor like some teens everyone knows.

I enjoyed this book, though not as much as the intended audience I’m sure and was pleasantly surprised by the ending indication that there will be a sequel with older characters!

This novel was published by Tate Pubishing on October 29th, 2013 and is available on Amazon here.

TL;DR Star Rating: 4.50

Links for more information:

Tiffany Belcher’s Website

Goodreads