Castle Hangnail by Ursula Vernon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Haunted castles! Stitched-up minions! Walking suits of armour! Bats! donkeys! Several kinds of not-quite-dragons! And a 12-year old Wicked Witch who isn’t exactly who she says she is. These are the ingredients of Ursula Vernon’s latest novel and all I can say is I need a sequel now.
If you read my other reviews you already know what I love about Ursula’s books: the humour, the clever resolutions, the characters and their snappy dialogue, and that down-to-earthness that makes her stories of magic extremely realistic and relatable (I’m not talking about grimdark here, but rather things like the start reality of having to pull weeds from a garden, or the need to steamroll the carpets in your ancient arcane vault because they certainly won’t get clean by themselves).
Castle Hangnail definitely gives all this and more. In an age of catastrophic dystopic YA, this is a real breath of fresh air.
Well, maybe not too fresh. Those rooms haven’t been opened since the vampire lord died, you know.