Series: Wayward Children #3 (Reviews of book one and book two)
Release Date: January 9th 2018
Publisher: Tor Books
Pages: 174
Find it on: Goodreads. BookDepository. Waterstones.
Source: I listened to this on Scribd.
Rating: 3.75/5 stars

Synopsis

When Rini lands with a literal splash in the pond behind Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, the last thing she expects to find is that her mother, Sumi, died years before Rini was even conceived. But Rini can’t let Reality get in the way of her quest – not when she has an entire world to save! (Much more common than one would suppose.)

If she can’t find a way to restore her mother, Rini will have more than a world to save: she will never have been born in the first place. And in a world without magic, she doesn’t have long before Reality notices her existence and washes her away. Good thing the student body is well-acquainted with quests…

A tale of friendship, baking, and derring-do.

Warning: May contain nuts.

Review

Beneath the Sugar Sky is the third instalment of Seanan McGuire’s Eleanor West series and this time we’re following Rini who visits the Home for Wayward Children in search of her mother Sumi. When she arrives she discovers her mother died before she was even conceived, sending Rini and the other residents on an adventure to restore Sumi before Rini is wiped completely from existence.

I have pretty much fallen completely in love with this series. Each instalment has been a magical tale, full of whimsy and adventure and Beneath the Sugar Sky is no different. This time around we get to visit a few different worlds, and I loved getting to see the Confection in all its nonsense glory.

We revisit some characters we met in the previous books as well as being introduced to a few new residents of the home. I thought Cora was quite an interesting new character and I loved the idea of her being from a world with mermaids. McGuire does a brilliant job of the world building with all these different worlds and each one feels well fleshed out.

Although I really enjoyed Beneath the Sugar Sky, it’s probably my least favourite out of the three so far. In the audio book version I found Rini quite irritating and I think this lessened my enjoyment of the story. Despite that it’s still a fascinating tale with plenty of action packed into just a small number of pages. This series is shaping up to be one of my favourites, and I’m so excited to explore the Goblin Market in In An Absent Dream.