The Shadows Of Winterspell

The shadows of winterspell by Amy Wilson is based around a young girl, Stella, who has been hiding behind the magic of the forest for a long time. Feeling lonely, she enrolls herself into a school and makes a lot of new friends! What Stella doesn’t know is the secret the headmasters hiding and how much bigger her small world is. 

As autumn steadily turns into a magical winter Stella realizes that the only way to save the forest from the shadow king is to discover the secrets of her own family. With the help of her friends she must brave on the dark secrets that the shadows cover and find the light in her own past. With help from her new friends and her grandmother who had looked after her when her mother died Stella raids her family castle unprepared for what she might find there. 

With the magical creature at her side a war breaks out creature (and one human) against the shadows of winterspell. 

The shadows of winterspell is about a girl named Stella who, all her life lived in a cottage with her grandmother. She is actually a sprite but her grandmother has always hidden the creature part of her in order to protect Stella from the dark and dangerous shadows that lurk just outside their cottage in the nook of winterspell forest. As Stella starts to grow up, she yeans for friends to talk to and play with. 

So, she does what any child would do; She enrolls herself in a school. What she doesn’t know is that this school has its own secret to hide and Stella finds herself torn between two worlds. She then later discovers a false rumor which the mythical folk have lived their training upon. Stella must consult her grandmother and uncover the great burden she has knowingly carried for all these years. Will Stella live up to her destiny or will the shadows get her first?! 

The Shadows of winterspell is an amazing book simply brimming fantasy and adventure. All fiction and mythical readers are guaranteed to love this book. i think a really good feature to this book is that very few pages it presents you with illustrations of mythical characters and how they might look like in the story.

 They also mention a bit about their personality their strengths weaknesses and likes and dislikes. Amy Wilson has such a big imagination to be able to write this story. It has action, thrillers, friendships, adventure, fantasy and so much more. It was great fun to read as the characters when on their journey into the final battle.

 On her journey Stella transforms from the girl she once was, lonely, normal and isolated to finding her true self with the help of her new friends. At the end the main message is to not hide your true self. She sees what she really looks like under all the glamour which she hid under for all those years. It is great to see Stella make friends and at the end find out what creature she actually is. 

“‘There’s a sparkle in her blue eyes that makes me wonder, just for a second, if she has a little magic. Some people do. A little bit of fae blood, passed through the generations, or an affinity with the words in books of magic” 

-Stella 

Amy Wilson uses so much creativity in her writing after all it is not easy to conjure up a whole new world based around imagination! Perfect if you want to escape from reality. Stella is trying to find her boldness.

 After all it is already written in her destiny that she must face the man who was once her father before he was overcome with grief from her mother’s death in order to save all the fae living in the depths of Winterspell. 

Amy Wilson has a background in journalism and is currently living in Bristol with her young family. She is a graduate from Bath Spa MA in creative writing. and is the author of the critically acclaimed novels A Girl Called Owl – nominated for the CILIP Carnegie medal – and A Far Away Magic. She has written a few children’s fiction books including this one.