Daisy Thistledown has escaped from boarding school and has a mystery to solve. Her search for her missing mother will lead her across London and through a hidden doorway to another world, filled with plants and bursting with magic: the Greenwild.
But all is not well in this astonishing land. Before long Daisy finds herself confronting a dangerous presence that threatens green magic on both sides of the door. Daisy must band together with a botanical genius, a boy who can talk to animals, and a cat with an attitude, to channel the power that can revive the Greenwild and find her missing mother - and save her own world too.
Portal fantasies aren't new. The most well known is almst certainly Narnia, where the portal took the children to somewhere completely other. Series like Harry Potter, meanwhile, placed their secret new worlds into gaps and hidden spaces in ours, bringing them closer to us. Greenwild is closer to Harry Potter, with the Greenwild itself hidden in pockets of our world, invisible except under certain circumstances.
The worldbuilding is amazing here, with details and ideas and tiny throwaway sentences that make the Greenwild as real and lived in as our world is. Of course, a lot of those throwaway details come back later on and turn out to be important! Pari has a real gift both for description and for embedding details that seem like just part of the atmosphere at first, but turn out to be important later.
I love Daisy's group of allies (especially Napoleon!) and can't wait to read more of their adventures as the series continues. I was really pleased to see that, although there are some story threads continuing on, there's no cliffhanger here; the main story is wrapped up and everyone is left in a good place, more or less.
Kids are really going to enjoy this, and I can't wait for the TV adaptation. Someone's looking after that, right?
Greenwild publishes on the 1st of June, 2023 in the UK and on the 6th of June, 2023 in the US, using the same cover. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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