Spirit Warriors

Your reviewer enjoyed Ashley Thorpe’s previous novel The Boy to Beat the Gods, set in West Africa, and this will also appeal to readers who enjoy stories involving myths and magic, this time in the Caribbean. It is set on the fictional island of Xaymaca, which ‘the English call Jamaica’, and Ocho Rios Bay does exist there. Thirteen-year-old Evie has been adopted by Mrs Bell, (the owner of a magical hotel, where enchanted vines lift residents’ suitcases up to their rooms), and they have a loving relationship, but she is anxious to take the larimar, a blue stone her parents left her, to the local festival, in hopes of finding a spirit waker to reach the ghosts of her parents, who had died 9 years previously. Her friend, Arthur, an experienced thief and pickpocket, helps her to retrieve it from the hotel safe, and goes with her in hopes of acquiring booty to sell. Of course, it all goes horribly wrong, and the battle against evil begins. The Blackheart Man and his associate, La Diablesse, want Evie’s stone to join with other powerful stones that together will destroy the barrier between the living and the dead. Arthur gets caught up in the spells that flew about that night, and spends most of the book as a talking cat, (which makes his appearance on the cover showing him in boy form rather misleading), but he can still be useful, as is the trainee warrior Cai. It turns out that Evie has powers of her own, which she has to learn how to use effectively, and of course all is well at the end, but it’s a roller-coaster ride of a plot, and recommended.