Really Weird Removals.com by Daniela Sacerdoti: Reviewed by Rosalie Warren

Cover illustration by Nicola Robinson

Is your home infested with anything you would like to have removed? A stranded sea serpent, perhaps, or a smelly troll, werewolf or baby dragon?

If so, you may like to know about ReallyWeirdRemovals.com, who specialise in the safe (and, on the whole, humane) removal of such creatures to places better suited to their idiosyncratic lifestyles and eating habits. The website is a real one, and you are invited to email them with your requests for help. (I don't think they deal with more common pests such as rats and wasps' nests, though.)

Luca, aged twelve, and his sister Valentina, eleven, live on an island called Eilean, off the west coast of Scotland. They have a rather scatty and delightful Italian mother who puts homemade pasta in their lunch boxes and lives, Luca tells us, in a world of her own, venturing out every now and then to look after her children. Luca's father is a writer who spends a lot of time alone, creating a series that aims to be as successful as Harry Potter - and, meanwhile, neglecting his own family just a bit.

The story begins when Luca's Uncle Alistair turns up in a blue van, announcing the set-up of his new pest-removal company. The children soon discover, however, that the pests to be removed are not the common or garden kind but supernatural creatures like kelpies and trolls.

Once the parnaormal element is introduced, the story bounces along, throwing up creatures yet more weird and wonderful with every chapter. Not all the beasties are dangerous and some are very appealing, like the female zeuglodon and her baby, Finlay. There's also Camilla, a lonely girl ghost who has been thrown out of the home she used to haunt and is looking for a family to take her in.

I love the way that many of the creatures come from Scottish folklore and mythology. The Luh, for example, is a Scottish werewolf. Kelpies look like ordinary women but can turn into white horses and are fond of eating children. Selkies are half-seal, half-human. Even the inevitable vampires have a Scottish flavour - they are known as Baobhan Sith and, with their long red hair, chalky faces, deer hooves and blood-sucking talons, could give some of the more conventional literary vampires a run for their money.

Life on a small Scottish island comes fully alive as we follow the adventures of Luca and his family. There's a longstanding argument between Uncle Alistair and his brother Duncan, Luca's father, which centres around the disappearance many years ago of their parents - lost, it seems, in an unfortunate time-fold experiment. The family relationships are warmly and convincly portrayed and contrast nicely with the scary stuff.

There is nothing too frightening here - just enough to provide excitement and chills. Young people from around 9 upwards will enjoy this greatly. Floris Books are a thriving independent publisher based in Edinburgh and this book is one of their 'Kelpies' series. I hope it gets the wide audience and enthusiastic response it deserves. I have a feeling more will follow!

(Just a final note to the copy-editor: Please change the last word of the book from 'I' to 'me'. I don't expect the ungrammaticality will bother many children, but it stuck in my craw, coming, as it did, at the end of a tasty feast!)

Book Details:
Title: Really Weird Removals.com
Author: Daniela Sacerdoti
Cover Illustrations: Nicola Robinson
Publisher: Floris Books, Edinburgh (Kelpies imprint)
Publication Date: October 2012
ISBN: 978-0863159022
Cover Price: £6.99 UK
On Amazon UK


Review by Rosalie Warren, author of Coping with Chloe
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DREAMS by Daniela Sacerdoti; reviewed by Gillian Philip

First, a declaration of interest: I got to know Daniela Sacerdoti (@danisacerdoti), as I have so many other good friends, on Twitter. She was kind enough to send me a copy of her adult novel WATCH OVER ME, which as an IVF veteran enthralled me while touching all kinds of chords, including umbilical ones (forgive the pun. Oh all right, don't).

So I was delighted and intrigued to hear that Daniela's next novel with Black and White Publishing was to be a YA paranormal thriller, DREAMS - the first in a trilogy about the enticingly named Sarah Midnight. Sarah, as it happens, is on Twitter too (@sarahmmidnight) - another of these wretched characters who slip the authorial leash to to dabble in social networking. (I can't imagine how any author could so ineptly lose editorial control over their own creations - right, @sethmacgregor?)

Sarah is a character who grows on you like a vine - slowly at first, with her understandable resentment at her deceased parents, who were so busy battling demons they forgot to teach her either about life, or about avoiding death. So nervous and scared and grief-stricken at the beginning of the book, she's outrageously OCD - I wish Sarah was in charge of cleaning my house - she has by the final chapter emerged from her self-imposed chrysalis a cold and violently determined butterfly. The reasons for her growth - which she has resisted for so long - I'm certainly not going to tell you. That would be Spoilers. But by the book's end, that creeping vine has wrapped itself round your throat, and you'll be as eager as I am for the sequels.

There's a host of marvellous supporting characters, from the mysterious Leaf - whose motives and loyalties remain shifting and nebulous even at the end of this book - to the mesmerising Harry, who isn't Harry at all. (Bear with me - and read the book, because I'm not going to explain myself here.)

As for the villains - well, it's always difficult to find monsters who are viler and more frightening with each paranormal book that's published. Trust me, the demons Sarah has to fight do not disappoint - you'll be anxiously watching your step the next time you walk on the soft peaty earth of a moor.

DREAMS is Waterstones' Book of the Month for May, as well as Book of the Month for the Scottish Book Trust. It's officially launched on 12th May at Waterstones Argyle Street, Glasgow - and I'll be there, looking nervously over my shoulder at the bookshelf shadows. And I really, really want a poster of that stunning cover...

DREAMS by Daniela Sacerdoti. Published by Black & White Publishing

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