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Book Review: Grimmworld: The Witch in the Woods by Michaelbrent Collings

Grimmworld: The Witch in the Woods, by Michaelbrent Collings

Shadow Mountain Publishing, March 2024 (not yet released)

ISBN: 9781639932320

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition

Michaelbrent Collings writes good thrillers, and writes them fast: his pace has always been Dean Koontz-like. Grimmworld is his first attempt at a middle grade fantasy novel, and not surprisingly, it’s very good. Collings has no trouble shifting his high-octane writing to fantasy, Kids and adults both will love this.

The book is a nifty new way to use Grimm’s Fairy Tales for backdrop. The first 90 pages are a bit slow, but it’s just the setup for the real story. Twins Jake and Willow Grimm are living in a new town, where their parents are involved in top secret research. Through a collision of multiverses, the twins wind up in Grimmworld, where all the old fairy tales actually happen, for real. However, the endings are very different in Grimmworld, and not happy ones, either– the original Brothers Grimm changed the endings when they wrote them. Once the story shifts to Grimmworld, it takes off, and kicks into high gear. Jake and Willow do get some scientific explanation for the different worlds from a friend and wizard, Old Eli. Collings does a nice job balancing a plausible scientific theory and making it understandable to young readers.. The ‘bubble’ analogy the author used really helps tie this section together. The lovable, enigmatic mole-rat, Chet, also helps the twins, although his Cheshire-cat style of talking does drive them somewhat nuts.

The last half of the book is fantastic, with Jake and Willow attempting to save Hansel and Gretel from the witch’s oven. There are a lot of outstanding riddles and puzzles in this section: riddling hasn’t been this much fun since Bilbo went toe to toe with Gollum all those years ago. The ‘slow camel’ race and magic tree demonstrate real planning on the author’s part, and they are simple enough for readers to follow. It’s the perfect wrap-up to a very good story. Thankfully, this isn’t the end: Collings has already promised another if he gets a good response from readers. Based on this, he won’t have any trouble getting it.

Bottom line is, this does what a good middle grade fantasy should do: thrill younger and older readers alike. Schools should have this, to help kids see that reading has a LOT more to offer than staring at cell phones. As for the author, who knows what else he has in his bag of tricks? Recommended.

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Book Review: The Next Time I Die by Jason Starr

The Next Time I Die by Jason Starr. ( Bookshop.org. | Amazon.com )

Hard Case Crime, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1789099515

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

I received an unfinished ARC of this from Hard Case Crime.

Steven Blitz is the defense lawyer for serial killer Jeffrey Hammond, a high profile case. He is working on the case at home when out of seemingly nowhere his mentally Ill wife demands a divorce, says she’s in love with a woman, and locks him out in a snowstorm. He is driving through the snow when the car skids and he is nearly in an accident. He stops for gas and intervenes in a domestic dispute that ends with him getting stabbed and bleeding out.

Or is that really what happened? He wakes up in the hospital with a concussion to a loving wife, and a daughter and dog he never owned, wealthy, a survivor of brain cancer, and with a good life… but he is not a good person. The world has changed and nobody believes him.

Steven is a bizarrely unreliable narrator and I was glued to the pages trying to figure out what crazy turn the story would take next, and if it could be believed. The Next Time I Die has been optioned for a movie, and if it’s made, it will be interesting to see how it turns out. Recommended.

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski