Roses & Thorns

Roses & Thorns

Sunday, October 5, 2014

An Elfy on the Loose by Barb Caffrey



Blurb:

One Elfy for an entire planet?

He's supposed to be the Watcher for his people, the representative on Earth from his dimension, but the small being known to his enemies as "Jonny-Wonny" wakes up to big trouble—trapped in a bizarre house in Knightsville, California with humans straight out of reality TV. Jon knows that something has gone dreadfully wrong—he's starving, lonely and dressed in funny clothes.

Enter the couple's ten-year-old diminutive daughter, who is "Not Daisy!" but is brilliant, sweet...and using high level magic with ease. She's also desperately in need of a friend.

Insisting her name is really Sarah, and christening him Bruno, his new friend asks him how they're going to get out of there.

The only thing that comes to mind is for Bruno to ask his teacher, Roberto the Wise, for help. But Roberto's attempt at help only enmeshes all three of them further in a web of deceit and treachery. Bruno finds out that, unfortunately, most of what he thought he knew about himself was very wrong…and much of what Sarah knows about herself is also wrong, including her age.

Worst of all, a Dark Elf is on the scene and is intent on corrupting the local Humans, including Sarah's parents.

New names, new locations, a new mission—Bruno is going to get to the bottom of all the craziness, and Sarah will be there for him every step of the way.

Watch out, universe—an Elfy is on the loose!

Review:

When I started reading An Elfy on the Loose by Barb Caffrey, I thought it was too cute for adult fare with phrases like “elfy-welfy” and “Jonny-wonny.” Even the main characters eschewed those appellations. But, I thought my twelve year-old granddaughter would love it. Then when I was cleaning out my e-mails, I came across the first one I received from Ms. Caffrey in which she asked me to review her YA (young adult) fantasy. Well of course!  The book was aimed at my granddaughter!  I revised my attitude and realized I was reading a five-star book.  An Elfy on the Loose had a wonderful cast of good, bad, and possibly redeemable characters with plenty of secrets that needed to be unraveled, as well as a huge disaster looming on the horizon.  It even had me on the edge of my seat, wondering how Bruno and Sarah would save Bruno’s teacher, Roberto, from being sacrificed by the Dark Elf at noon on May Day.

I was all set to give this book five stars.  Until it stopped.  Just as they were preparing to confront the Dark Elf.  Maybe Ms. Caffrey doesn’t think today’s tweens have the attention span to read a series if each book stands on its own like Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames, and The Hardy Boys did when I was young. (Cherry Ames was the Nancy Drew of nursing.  I read all of those books.)  I haven’t read them, but according to a colleague, each book in The Hunger Games series stands alone.  But maybe that would be considered NA or new adult.  I’m not sure how much violence or sex is in it.

At any rate, I hate cliff-hanger endings, and in my opinion this wasn’t even an ending.  I’m sorry Ms. Caffrey.  I have to give this book a thorn.  I don’t recommend it.

Length:  396 Pages
Digital Price:  $3.99

You’ll notice we always include the publisher’s buy link.  That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the book price from the publisher.  Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%.  When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left.  So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40.  If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $0.83.

Downloading the file from your computer to your Kindle is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive. Plug the larger USB end of your chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from your “Downloads” box to your Kindle/Documents/Books directory. You can download your books onto your computer using “Save As” to a “Books” file you create and sort them into sub-folders by genre, author, or however you wish before transferring them to your Kindle. That way, if there’s a glitch with your Kindle, the books are on your computer. Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.

Thanks for visiting. Rose, Julie & Rochelle

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for your review, Donna. It was the publisher's decision to split up ELFY (one book, originally) into the ELFY duology. I'm currently writing a new first chapter to get everyone back into the second half of the original novel...the second half is called A LITTLE ELFY IN BIG TROUBLE and should be out in a few months.

    Anyway, I thank you for your kind words about my writing. I do appreciate it.

    Barb Caffrey

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