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Tuesday, 1 February 2022

Blog Tour: The Beast and the Bethany 2



Once upon a very badly behaved time, 511-year-old Ebenezer kept a beast in his attic. He would feed the beast all manner of objects and creatures and in return the beast would vomit him up expensive presents. But then the Bethany arrived.

Now notorious prankster Bethany, along with her new feathery friend Claudette, is determined that she and Ebenezer are going to de-beast their lives and Do Good. But Bethany finds that being a former prankster makes it hard to get taken on for voluntary work. And Ebenezer secretly misses the beast’s vomity gifts. And neither of them are all that sure what “good people” do anyway.

Then there’s Claudette, who’s not been feeling herself recently. Has she eaten something that has disagreed with her?

Welcome to the blog tour for this fun title! I enjoyed the first book in this series about eighteen months ago, and I'm so pleased to be able to read the second one now!

So for a quick recap: Ebenezer used to have a Beast that would vomit out riches and gifts in exchange for living beings to eat. Over the years the Beast got more and more picky, eventually demanding a child. Ebenezer adopted Bethany, but baulked at the idea of actually feeding her to it, and together they defeated it instead. Maybe. Hopefully?

These are fantastic reads, full of action, adventure, magic, with a moral laid in but not too obviously, and with fantastic illustrations. They're a great next step after Diary of a Wimpy Kid - same reading level, same sense of anarchic humour, but slightly less illustrations. Bethany and Ebenezer are great - the sequence where they want to be good, can't quite figure it out, ask some advice and happily go home to do laundry and eat soup had me laughing along as I read.

These books are fantastic, funny, heartfelt, and could clearly run for a long time. I can't wait to follow along with them.

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