For that reason, I’ll call it a fantasy here. However, since the book takes place in an alternate world, the only category that comes close to defining it is, indeed, fantasy. This, in spite of the fact that magic plays no part in Mosca Mye’s world. They’ll call this book “fantasy” because they will have nowhere else to put it. The two cook up a plan but soon find that there is more at work in Toll (and more wrong with it) than anyone could have initially suspected. Mosca, for her part, has a “dark” name and it soon becomes clear that if she and Eponymous can’t raise the necessary funds to leave the town, she’ll be banished to the night and have to deal with the villains there. Others live during the night and must do whatever they can to survive. Some citizens live during the daylight hours and have all the perks society can offer. Here you have a residence where the moment of your birth shapes where you may exist. In their travels they end up in the city of Toll. Having helped spark a revolution in the city of Mandelion, the three have taken off for other towns and now need to escape further. When we last saw our heroes, the orphaned Mosca Mye with her homicidal good Saracen, her penchant for language, and her smart mouth was still in the company of the silver-tongued con man Eponymous Clent. The result is a rollicking adventure start to finish that does not slot neatly into any contemporary category, but still winds up charming its readers. The follow-up Fly Trap (called Twilight Robbery in the UK) reunites readers with familiar characters, but does not actually require the reader to have read (or even reread) the first. Years and years ago she gave the world Fly By Night, a marvelous girl/goose/con man tale of misfits who unwittingly influence huge events. There are only a few children’s writers in this world that I will drop everything to read. There are some authors, however, that write such magnificent books that when their sequels do appear you are helpless to resist. Usually when I do I simply get more of the same old, same old. Heck, I don’t even like to even read sequels half the time. This is my convoluted way of saying that I don’t like reviewing them.

And in the rare case where the sequel is better than its predecessor, one’s positive review is sort of moot if it seems as though it’s recommending the first book in any way. One can hardly review a book without suggesting to the reader that they read the previous novel as well. As I see it, reviewing a sequel is a peculiar enterprise.

Fly by night hardinge novel