Tilly & the Lost Fairytales Changed My Opinion On Its Entire Series

Title: Tilly the Lost Fairytales
Author: Anna James
Series: Pages & Co #2
Publication Date: September 19th, 2019
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A magical adventure to delight the imagination. The curl-up-on-the-sofa snuggle of a series from a uniquely talented author.

Tilly Pages is a bookwanderer; she can travel inside books, and even talk to the characters she meets there. But Tilly’s powers are put to the test when fairytales start leaking book magic and causing havoc . . .

On a wintery visit to Paris, Tilly and her best friend Oskar bravely bookwander into the land of fairytales to find that characters are getting lost, stories are all mixed-up, and mysterious plot holes are opening without warning. Can Tilly work out who, or what, is behind the chaos so everyone gets their happily-ever-after?

Review

The second instalment in Pages & Co has proved to be much more enjoyable and memorable. Tilly and Oskar make their return after learning of their wonderful bookwandering abilities. This time they're armed with all the information they need in order to travel in and out of books as safely as possible. Or so they thought. Tilly and Oskar are thrust into an entirely unusual and highly dangerous situation, inviting what I had hoped would happen in the first book of this series - adventure, excitement and intrigue.

As Tilly & the Bookwanderers (review here) had already outlined the world, character and how the magic of bookwandering worked quite thoroughly, I greatly appreciated how little recap was involved in Tilly & the Lost Fairytales. Instead, I was almost immediately transported into the adventure that awaited our duo and enjoyed the pacing of the story. James' writing was also a lot better, in the sense that this time, rather than feeling like I was being told of what was happening, I could visualise each scene, the characters actions and emotions. This led to me feeling as though I was part of Tilly and Oskar's journey, that instead of a duo, I was part of a trio. This was exactly what I was after from this story, and any middle grade novel for that matter. The feeling of being part of a quest with the characters, immersing myself in the challenges and excitement that comes with it. That's really all the fun in reading middle grade stories. 

I thoroughly enjoyed what James brought to this series this time around, flying through the book in one sitting. I've also learnt quite quickly that the Tilly's story is in fact not a stand-alone like I initially thought nor is it a duology, which I told myself was the case. Instead, the Pages & Co series is a trilogy and am eager to get my hands on the latest release, Tilly and the Map of Stories, to be part of Tilly and Oskar's next adventure.