A Talent for Trouble

Alice lives at Cherry Grange, a sweet cottage in the English countryside. She misses her mother, who died a few years earlier, and her father, who travels a lot, but she has her Aunt Patience to take care of her. Unfortunately, they can’t afford to keep the cottage. Aunt Patience sells it and sends Alice to Stormy Loch, a Scottish boarding school.

On her way there, Alice meets another student, Jesse, but they have a misunderstanding. Then she meets Fergus and they become friends, which hurts Jesse. Alice receives a mysterious package and instructions to meet her father. When Alice, Fergus, and Jesse are assigned to team up for an orienteering challenge, Alice sees this as the chance to meet up with her father. What could go wrong?

Author Natasha Farrant has written an adventure that will have youngsters holding their collective breath and turning pages as fast as they can read them. The story is very compelling, the characters are endearing and realistically flawed, and the writing is crisp. The second-person perspective with a true storyteller at the helm is perfect for this sweeping story. Although the cover is cute, it doesn’t represent the excitement inside.