I received an advanced copy from netgalley to read in exchange for an honest review.

Let me start by saying, this was NOT my cup of tea. For me it was really hard to get into. It had a pretty slow start. At first I had no idea why it was worth my time to read the journal entries, and they seemed to lack any correlation. I’m glad i did. I felt that I had to finish this because I was given a copy to review.

If you can get past a rough start, this book is actually pretty good. Where it really shines is in the other people (i should say creatures) that the MC meets. The main character, Carter, wasn’t a character I was particularly fond of. But he really lucks out alot. Between his personality and his missing sister, alot of the interactions he has with these otherwordly characters are interesting, and they often want to help them.

The plot twist was even pretty good, although if your paying attention you can see it coming.

I give this book a solid 3 stars, it was good, but hard to get into to begin with, it wasn’t particularly though provoking, or even entertaining in the beginning, the stage setting for the remainder of the story is what the beginning of the book consists of, and again, to me, that bit was extremely boring. Once past it, the book began to really take an interesting approach, it was almost like a “who dun it” and a why they did it wrapped into one with all kinds of folklore and mythology interwoven into it.


Also posted review on amazon, awaiting approval.

I honestly requested this book because the font was similar to Stranger Things and I'm an absolute sucker for anything relating to that kind of thing. Unfortunately, this book feels that it borrows a lot of elements from Rose, an Image Comics publication with a very similar story published a few years ago and it's setting (Glasgow, Edinburgh) as well as the brother-sister trope (in the comic it was a younger sister looking for her older sister who turned out to be something else entirely).

I'm not sure if the author was highly inspired by the comic which led her to writing a story that's pretty much the novelization of Rose, but unfortunately reading A Stranger's Guide felt like I was revisiting that world of folklore and mysticism. The series ran from 2017 to 2019 and I really hope the concept of Rose was overlooked by Platt when coming up with a story for A Stranger's Guide.

Unfortunately this book was not as cool as the cover. It starts with a guy looking for his missing sister and finds her friends and colleagues, as well as a strange diary which he thinks will give him clues. After about 20% into the book, I still didn't know if I cared why this girl is missing, and wasn't swept away by the magic/magical beings. I didn't learn much about her, or her magic.

Carter journeys to Scotland to find his missing sister, Sarah. They come from a magical family although Carter has never liked or properly used his magic.

In order to find Sarah, Carter encounters many magical creatures.

This was a well written, highly enjoyable dark fantasy. The author is adept at creating memorable characters and world building.

I anticipate her next novel.

I was given an ARC. I am leaving my honest review.