"Pages & Co: Tilly and the Bookwanderers" by Anna James is the first title in her Pages and Co series.
There's a really awesome story mechanic this book pulls really early on that just had us sitting up and paying attention.
When the book world and the real world start to leak into each other in books and stories, we were completely locked in as it's such a fantastic idea - and beautifully executed here by Anna.
Since her mother’s disappearance, eleven-year-old Tilly has found comfort in stories at Pages & Co., her grandparents’ bookshop.
But when her favourite characters, Anne of Green Gables and Alice from Wonderland, appear in the shop, Tilly’s adventures become very real.
Not only can she follow Anne and Alice into their thrilling worlds, she discovers she can bookwander into any story she chooses.
Tilly’s new ability could even help her solve the mystery of what happened to her mother all those years ago. But danger may be lurking on the very next page, because not all stories have lovely characters and happy endings in them!
This is glorious stuff, completely winning us over with Anna's depiction of classic characters beautifully meshing with her own creations (yes, we'll even forgive the use of the name "Tilly" - one of our bugbears for middle grade novels is that the name crops up a heck of a lot!)
This Tilly though and her mesmeric power of bookwandering sets out the foundation for a series that should be able to go from strength to strength with ease, it's such a fantastic idea that offers endless possibilities and we can't wait to see where Tilly wanders next.
"Pages & Co: Tilly and the Bookwanderers" by Anna James is out now, published by HarperCollins Children's Books (kindly supplied for review).