This would be a great book for able, but reluctant readers - especially those with a love of science and maths. Loris Owen creates a wonderful world where nothing is quite as it seems. Kip has a deep secret which takes some time to be revealed alongside the mystery energy that he has to learn about. There are many familiar story lines: dysfunctional family, gifted child, boarding school with mysterious characters and stereotypical bullies; however, there is so much more to this book.

I found the first couple of chapters a little hard to get into, but once I was sucked into Kip's new world I was intrigued to carry on. I love the clues and code breaking skills that this story required and know many of the pupils at my school will really enjoy the challenge of trying to figure them out.

The world that Owen creates is familiar and yet very different to anything I have read recently and I would recommend this fantastic read to able Y5 readers and above.

Packed full of action, amazing world building and plenty of puzzles, The Ten Riddles of Eartha Quicksmith is a fun, magical story which children will love. Here are three reasons you should be buying it as a back-to-school gift.

1. The world building is complex and detailed. Full of fun facts and jokes, the world of Quicksmith academy is one all children will want to visit. It's a school full of endlessly fascinating new discoveries where curiosity and inventiveness are championed. There is so much to get your head around and I really hope there is more to come.

2. Kip and his friends all have different strengths and each is vital to their eventual success. Their accomplishments are a team effort, and its nice to see everyone's differences and individual talents celebrated. Quicksmiths is a place where everyone is special in their own way. Kip's backstory is also extremely touching, and a real driving force throughout the novel.

3. As the title suggests, The Ten Riddles of Eartha Quicksmith is full of tension, excitement and puzzles. The riddles helped keep tension and stakes high and made me desperate to keep reading once they started. The pace of this story definitely picks up once the first riddle appears and it was during the hunt for clues that this novel really shone.

The Ten Riddles of Eartha Quicksmith intrigued me right from the beginning and quickly launched into a world filled with ‘strange energy’ (a concept I want to know more about). The magical and scientific explanations created a fantastic world and concept that is sure to hook any reader. I read this book in one sitting as I am sure many others will, furiously wanting to know more and get to the end.

The story was fast paced and kept you wanting more throughout. I particularly enjoyed the riddles and it was fun to try and think how they might be solved. The characters were likeable and Kip’s plight throughout kept me engaged in the story. I just really hope there’ll be another story in this world!

From the first minute I saw the cover, I was intrigued by this book. I couldn’t put it down! So excited to share this one with my new class in September!

This is a great adventure story, with a quest that reminds me of Garth Nix & a series of puzzles to solve. Kip is a troubled child, living in the shadows of his harrowing past. He has few friends and life at his school is miserable. However, someone sees something special in Kip and leads him to a magical alternate world, where he fits in like a perfect jigsaw piece. With the help of an ever growing friendship group, he embarks on a quest that may help him to save his mum.
With instantly loveable characters and some truly fantastical ideas and inventions, this book is a delight and I couldn’t wait to find out the ending. I feel sure that there is a series to follow this and can’t wait to read the next instalment!

Although it took me a while to get into the book, I enjoyed The Ten Riddles of Eartha Quicksmith, which provided a happy escape. This is a sci-fi adventured filled with riddles as Kip learns to navigate the new world around him at Quicksmiths. I'll be recommending this book upon its release.

I liked the puzzle / riddle aspect to this novel and I would definitely recommend it to my students to read. For me, personally, it was a little overloaded with characters and I would have preferred some more character development, particularly with the main character’s family.

Overall a great read though.

Thanks for NetGalley for this copy to review.

«The Ten Riddles of Eartha Quicksmith» is the first book in a new and very promising middle-grade series. On Goodreads, it’s actually not classified as part of the series. Maybe due to the fact that this a debut novel, the publishers want to see how it does before committing to the whole series idea. The book reads well on its own, but it definitely left some questions unanswered, and I’d love to see more adventures from Kip and his group of friends.

Kip Bramley is a bright young student, but school is not his favorite place in the world. Mostly due to indifferent teachers and rather evil classmates. When he receives a cryptic invitation to Quicksmiths, his world changes forever.

I won’t tire to repeat myself, but every single MG novel has a great friendship group (at least the ones I’ve been reading lately), and «The Ten Riddles of Eartha Quicksmith» wasn’t an exception to this great rule! Most surprisingly though is that Kip wasn’t the character I liked the most! Maybe Kip’s character needed a little bit more work to not get overshadowed by his much more interesting peers. Or maybe this was intentional, and Loris Owen wanted to show some love to the side characters as well.

Was it intentional or not, but I liked it. It was interesting to see other characters shine as well during their quest to solve the ten riddles left by Eartha herself!

Unlike, other books with magical schools, this one is pretty unique! There is magic, yes, but it’s all way more science-heavy and almost has more sci-fi than fantasy elements. But as we all know, sci-fi and fantasy often walk hand in hand, and that’s definitely the case for «The Ten Riddles of Eartha Quicksmith».

I had told myself that I wouldn’t, shouldn’t, must not request any more books from Net Galley until I’d got through some of the physical reads in my TBR pile but after seeing this glorious cover, and reading the review from my Twitter friend @notsotweets, couldn’t resist. Having now read this wonderful book, I have made a mental note to self to not be so silly again.

Anyone not reading the blurb might assume that this middle grade read is about ‘Eartha Quicksmith’ but although she plays a key role in the story, our attentions are instead drawn on starting it to Kip, a seemingly very ordinary boy. We find him initially completing his homework as he waits for his regular Saturday morning chess club to start after being dropped off by Ashleigh, the daughter of some neighbours, who acts as his childminder. As he waits, his attention is drawn to a strange insect-like drone which delivers to him an envelope inside which is a fifty-pence coin unlike any in regular circulation in that it carries the message: ‘CHANGE YOUR WORLD’.

After later being taken back to the home he shares with dad Theo, Kip hides the envelope inside the cage of his much-loved flying squirrel Pinky and waits for Theo to return from his job as a chef. As he does so, Ashleigh’s parents carry out some odd jobs around his flat and Mrs Pointer, with a remarkable lack of tact, comments on a photo of Kip with his family in happier times before Kip starts to reflect on the loss of his best friend, who has emigrated to Australia, and how miserable his school life is.

Having had another rotten day in school on the following Monday, Kip finds a new gum-vending machine on the way home and again spies the message ‘CHANGE YOUR WORLD’ stamped onto it. Intrigued now, he uses his 50p to buy a plastic egg from the machine, the contents of which on closer inspection are clearly linked to the envelope the drone brought. As he ponders upon the meaning of what he has found, his deep thinking pays off as he reveals an address to visit, and time to arrive, a fortnight later.

Sneaking away from Chess Club to keep his appointment, Kip finds himself trying to unravel a set of clues which, once he has decoded them, lead him to a garden where he sees the words ‘Quicksmiths College of Strange Energy’ floating in mid-air above a gentleman who introduces himself as Professor Mo. The professor clearly knows who Kip is and explains to him where he is and why. From this point on, Kip’s life will never be the same as he starts an entirely new way of learning and together with several new friends must work to solve the ten riddles of Eartha Quicksmith in an attempt to bring his family back together. As he tries to solve the puzzles, Kip discovers that wherever he learns there will still be bullies and faces both great danger and, even worse, the prospect of not being able to reunite the family he so dearly loves.

For many readers, comparisons with the Harry Potter or Morrigan Crow series are inevitable, after all they are all based within educational establishments for a great deal of the time, but this book seemed to me to be an entirely fresh take on the ‘child-from-the-normal-world-gets-magically-transported- to-boarding-school’ genre. For a start, he is not living with unkind relations – Kip’s father loves him dearly – and although he is bullied and unhappy at his school he maintains contact with Theo after starting at Quicksmiths.

In the new world in which he finds himself, everything that is ‘different’ is not magical but rather is explained in terms of the more scientific idea of ‘Strange Energies’, which allow those who can see and feel them to create all manner of wonderful inventions. As Kip finds out more about these energies, he finds true friendship and starts to discover the nature of his own abilities.

I very much enjoyed this book and am hoping that there will be a sequel as, while the story works perfectly well as a stand-alone read, there are so many unanswered questions at the end of this book. In particular, I want to know more about Kip’s family although I do not want to say more than that here for fear of including spoilers here for those who haven’t as yet read this. I would recommend this to anyone looking for an alternative to Harry Potter or the Nevermoor stories. There are definitely several of my current year 5s and the Year 6s I taught last year who would love to read this as much as I did and it would also make a great bedtime read for children in year 4.

Huge thanks to both Net Galley and Firefly Press for allowing me to read this ahead of publication on September 10th.

I love this book. Right from the start I was gripped by its mysteries and its puzzles, and it just pulled me further in to this fantastical world. It's exciting, it's funny, and it's very clever.

It does the whole hidden world tucked away just out of sight in the real world thing really well. But unlike so many of these boarding school fantasy novels, The Ten Riddles of Eartha Quicksmith is based on science and not magic. It's just not the kind of science you'd recognise! There are so many amazing theories and marvellous inventions floating around (often literally), it's an absolute wonder and a joy. It feels like such an amazing place, and I enjoyed getting a glimpse of it.

There's a lovely set of friendships at the heart of it, with some of their ups and downs. The Glowflyer Gang is one of the best things about the book, and the bullies they face are genuinely nasty and sinister, giving a real sense of threat, and also making me cheer whenever someone stood up to them.

The central mystery is wonderful too. I loved the quest for the riddles and the prize at the end of them, and they were so cleverly presented. The pacing is perfect, with the tension really building up to the climax of the story, and Kip's past tragedies give it a real emotional poignancy.

There's wonderful use of language too. From the new inventions and sciences to the teacher, Professor Steampunk, who comes out with the most splendiferous words.

It also has some incredibly imaginative and cute animal companions.

This is definitely a series you want to get into now, at the start!

This book has a sad start as we meet Kip and know that he doesn't fit in at school, mourns the loss of his sister and is always worried about his mother who is left in a care home after a lightning strike.
Kip is clever and loves chess. One day while waiting for chess club, Kip receives a coin and a mysterious invitation which leads him through a set of puzzles, eventually finding his way to Quicksmiths College. He is offered a place to board at the school and he is thrilled to finally have that sense of belonging!
Kip arrives at an auspicious time for the college as an important letter from Eartha Quicksmith is set to be read which sets into motion an incredible puzzle and riddle solving expedition.
The prize is the Arc of Ideas, created by Eartha and hidden away from those that will use it for evil. Kip, has been prophesized as being a key player in this adventure. Forming a team with some other talented friends at the school, they pull ahead of the competition, not knowing just how dangerous this adventure could get.

With brilliant team building and camaraderie throughout, celebrating differences and talents and believing in yourself, this will be a popular book for readers 9+.
Fun inventions and gadgets, the use of wormholes and other technology, this is a super scientific celebration!

I loved this book and got the feeling there could be more to come...fingers crossed as this could become a huge series!

Kip is lonely and miserable at school. His sister is missing and his mother in a care home after a lightning strike.

Then a mysterious invitation that appears in the form of a puzzle to be solved leads him to Quicksmiths College of Strange Energy and he is offered a place there, where the finest and most creative minds are nurtured and new ideas and discoveries abound.

Indeed, there are endless clever and imaginative inventions and possibilities in this unique and well thought out world. From the useful to the fun, from the important to the novelty, there is so much to delight and wonder at – young readers will love it and it should be a huge source of inspiration to any budding scientists or inventors!

There’s real scientific and futuristic flare with wormholes, slipstreams and skimmies (flying hover board type devices), GENI (think Alexa but less invasive and WAY more capable), Quickets (electronic currency) and the use of technology.

This really set it apart from many other children’s fantasy adventures, which often have a more historical or rustic feel (which I absolutely love, but it is good to see something doing it differently!)

Once at Quicksmiths, Kip is soon part of a school wide race to find the Ark of Ideas and Secret Study of genius scientist and founder Eartha Quicksmith by solving a series mysterious riddles left hundreds of years earlier.

I really enjoyed this part of the book. While I did find the first part of the book a bit slow and a bit over the top at times, the latter part really picked up the pace and brought a much better sense of purpose and excitement to the story.

And I really loved the added intrigue of the riddles and seeing the characters working through them and how they’re solved; there is huge appeal in this book for any young (and not so young) puzzle lovers!

And it was great to see the sense of camaraderie and team spirit as the characters used their individual strengths and interests to work together and support each other.

The ending came with a brilliant twist and has been left ripe for a sequel, which I look forward to reading if/when we get it!

I’ll be honest, there were elements I was less keen on – I felt like it was all trying a bit too hard at times and I felt the first half could have been less wordy and much pacier. There were certain aspects of some characters speech that grated on me, though I suspect that’s personal taste, and honestly I just couldn’t get on with Professor Steampunk at all.

BUT none of this prevented me from really enjoying it as a whole and in the second half I absolutely couldn’t put it down wanting to see them solve the next riddle each time!

I’d definitely recommend this and it was great to see sci-fi and girls/women in STEM meet the popular fantasy adventure style quest so well. The use of riddles and technology was inspired and messages of respect, democracy, aspiration, teamwork and valuing variety and individuality shone out.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

The Ten Riddles of Eartha Quicksmtih is the debut middle-grade read from Loris Owen published by Firefly Press. It is a thrilling race-against-time fantasy read full of excitement, mystery and with danger lurking at every turn.

Twelve-year-old Kip Bramley lives on Eelstone Housing estate with his dad, Theo. He is still trying to deal with the loss of his sister and the hospitalisation of his mother after a freak lightning strike seven years ago. Kip attends school at Ledhill Community Academy but he doesn’t really fit in. He doesn’t belong with the sporty kids, he is not fond of the boastful clever kids and he is definitely not one of the cool kids. And his relationship with Miss. Gubbins or the ‘snibbug’, his form teacher and head of Science, is far from good.

Kip loves puzzles and whilst hanging out in his favourite Chess Nut Tree he receives an unusual fifty pence piece delivered by a beetle-shaped drone. The fifty pence piece is the first part of a puzzle which eventually sees Kip find his way to Quicksmiths. Quicksmiths is everything Ledhill Academy is not and for the first time in his life Kip finds himself fitting in with his surroundings.

Quicksmiths is a ‘school’ for people who think differently. Very differently in-fact. They don’t see the world the way most people do. Kip soon finds himself trying to solve riddles and unpick puzzles that were set by a genius four hundred years earlier. And the more riddles he solves the closer he seems to be to danger and the need to be the finder of the Ark of Secrets becomes ever more important.

It took me a while to really get into this read but once the riddle solving started I was engrossed. It is just over a third of the way in before Eartha Quicksmith’s first riddle is introduced. The pace picks up rapidly from here on in. It takes the children a while to solve the first three riddles but as soon as they get into full on problem solving mode and their brains are in-tune with the riddles the drama rapidly unfolds. The final third of the book sees seven riddles getting solved and a dramatic climax. I was extremely excited that I solved riddle number eight although I’m not sure that qualifies me for a place at Quicksmiths.

I love the world that Owen has created. The delicious place locations within Quicksmiths - The Buttery, Confucius Courtyard, Garden of Giant Leapfrogs, Celestial Hall, Clock Tower Courtyard, Aristotle’s Theatre. Each location is vividly brought to life and I could see myself walking around talking in the sights.

Venturing into the world of Quicksmiths for the first time brought that same buzz and excitement that I felt when I first visited Hogwarts. As I was reading I drew so many parallels with Harry Potter…children running around a unique school for children with special talents, boys and girls zooming around on flying objects, eclectic professors and teachers, and dark creatures lurking. And Owen has also given the reader some very loveable creatures, Kip’s dependable flying squirrel, Pinky, and Leela’s mowl. The Ten Riddles of Eartha Quicksmith does for the sci-fi world what Harry Potter did for the magical world and this is a wonderful thing.

As Kip and his friends go about trying to solve the riddles, Owen has woven important messages on friendship, teamwork, resilience and problem solving into the narrative.

I’m sure this will not be my only adventure into the world of Quicksmiths and I look forward to venturing back there again soon. Owen has also given me my favourite word of 2020…”wurble-urble” is the brilliant noise the mowl makes when it is excited! I very much look forward to seeing the published copy which will include illustrations and a map. The Ten Riddles of Eartha Quicksmith is due for release on 10th September 2020.

Recommended for 9+.

With thanks to Netgalley and Firefly Press for the review copy.