A tween read, made either exceedingly distinguished or ruinously awkward by being in its own form of language. The character Tess is a river-dweller, who calls Peg her Aunt – the very Aunt Peg that all the Teessiders know of as a witch-like child-snatching beastie. One thing the two must do is try and control Unkle (no, not the trip hop act), because he speaks in bold font and so must be desperately evil, but with Peg going senile, and Unkle stirring really quite revelatory thoughts in our girl's mind, things come to a head. Armed with a kitten and the fear of Unkle, Tess flees for the human world, where clues to her own origins might lie…

But the key thing that has to be talked of is the style – or even better, quoted. Here's a snippet – "There is a dry-folk boy standing on the bank, eyeing out over the water. I keep lowlow. He picks up a stone from the bankside and hoys it across the surface. It's a skinny-slim stone and it lands light, bouncing oncetwice across the top before sinking." So you have to try and pitch this all into a Geordie accent, cope with the select dialect words and verb choices that provides, take on board all the word construction unique to the family of river-dwellers, and more, just to get the gist of things. And let me tell you there are quite a few mentions of shopping trolleys, without there being any mention of shopping trolleys, if you catch my drift.

For me this was a brave choice, but boy I could see it being alienating. What it did was demand double-dipping, with the pages of this in front of you and the audio version playing too. Oh to have had that option. This is certainly a distinctive local piece of colloquial fantasy, and we certainly get a rare look into the family life of someone very other. But beyond the awkward narrative and writing style, things felt a touch too underdone – even mundane. Heck, didn't you see I said there was multiple mention of shopping trolleys?

This certainly is a Marmite book, and like nearly all Marmite things I'm very much on the fence. Ultimately this fulfilled its purpose, and it did provide a richness that I sought. But potentially I had too few problems with the wordiness twists, for beyond that I didn't see enough that was strange and unguessable. It might be the case that the style took the author's effort away from the depth of the story, and when it allows me to think that it's likely to get no more than three and a half stars.

I was quite excited for this one. Love the premise and that cover is GORGEOUS. But sadly the writing was a bit distracting for me and I just couldn't click with it. I found myself having to reread sections a few times before it made sense in my mind. Maybe I was tired at the time and my brain just wasn't engaging, I don't know.

I could only manage a few chapters of this one. The writing style was just not for me at all, I found it distracting and annoying. Maybe the story was good, but I'll never know because I was just so distracted by the writing. I think it's meant to be a dialect, but it feels so in your face, that you can barely concentrate on what's actually going on. So sadly it's a no from me. I don't like to not finish a book, but I'd rather spend time on something I'll enjoy.