I can’t help it, but I have to say that The Bonehill Curse reminds me of A Little Princess. It also happens to be Jon Mayhew’s best book. So far. We hope there will be more.
Set in the same world as the first two books, The Bonehill Curse features a plucky young lady and an Indian boy helper, and a flying carpet. Necessity Bonehill hates her boarding school, and when she accidentally lets a djinn escape from his bottle, all hell is let lose. At least that takes care of the school.
She finds that her father might not be the kind of man she had thought he was, and the same goes for a few more from her immediate circle of people. Necessity is far from ordinary, so she sets off to sort this djinn out.
The Amarant from Mortlock is involved, and that tells any Mayhew fans that things will get ugly. The storytelling is anything but ugly, however, and you just float happily and comfortably from one thing to the next, enjoying every moment. I don’t know how Jon does it, but I am glad he does.
I, for one, couldn’t foresee the ending. It’s skillfully done and you are only a little surprised, and you don’t mind, and then you feel it was the only way. Happy and quite scarily yucky, all at once.
(The Resident IT Consultant got to the book first. He pointed out that it was really rather good, and not at all as horrible as the blurb and the cover suggested. I said this might be explained by it being meant to attract boy readers – of a younger age than him – and then he said ‘but the main character is a girl.’ So, I don’t know.)
Did I mention it’s Jon’s best book?
