Saturday, December 12, 2015

Mysterious Saturday Review: Tiara on the Terrace

 *Book 2 in the Young and Yang series *
Sophie and Grace are helping out at the 125th annual Winter Sun Festival - a town tradition. Sophie's a little worried that Grace is over their big adventure and maybe her interests are turning. On the first day of preparations, the festival president turns up murdered.

Young and Yang are back on the case, only the death is ruled as an accident. These two aren't fooled and with the help of Trista, they realize they might be the ones interested in solving the murder.

In order to have access to all the suspects, the three friends volunteer as pages for the Royal Court. Sophie isn't thrilled with the idea, but even she admits that it's for a good cause.

As more people connected with the festival have accidents, including the three of them, Sophie and Grace are convinced that someone means business and these accidents were planned. Can they figure out who is behind everything before it's too late?
My Thoughts: I really love this duo -they're smart, determined, and quick on their feet. I liked seeing the behind the scenes of the royal court with learning decorum, photo opportunities, and making themselves beautiful for their big moment. I liked how the older girls bonded with the three friends, despite the forced bonding activities. I'm not a fan of forced bonding, but I really liked how these girls came together. 

I love Trista. She's terrible at spying but she's crazy smart.

I love how everything happens in the span of a few days, it heightened the tension for me.

I like how friendships are tested and the younger girls make mistakes in order to appear popular, but that they realize their mistakes. 

I like the almost romance plot.

Cover Thoughts: Love the action of this cover
Source: ARC sent for review
Final Thoughts: A great middle grade mystery! I hope to see much more of Young and Yang in the future. 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Aww, sounds nifty! Genuine characters who have failings they can learn from and strengths in other areas make reading a lot more fun...especially in something like a mystery where a believable deductive mind can make or break a protagonist.