I received an ARC of, The Miraculous Sweetmakers: The Frost Fair, by Natasha Hastings. Its the frost fair of 1683. Thomasina and her friend Anne are working at the frozen river. Their is an old legend that if you make a wish, Father Winter will grant it himself. Will Thomasina;s wish come true?

Personal rating:
2.75🌟, rounded up to 3🌟


Oh wow do I feel guilty for this rating. The story is pretty good at first and I did enjoy my time initially. However, as the story progresses, the children's behaviours started feeling too grown-up for their age, which brought me out of the story multiple times and by the end I was just waiting for the story to be over.

Here are a couple examples of what I meant:
1) How does Henry own that much money on his own? Nearing the end I swear I started to feel like he has the magical Doraemon pocket somewhere on his body and the pocket is able to produce as much money as he wants whenever, wherever.

2) Plus he is also so independent. Does his parents/caretakers really have that much trust towards him? We don't know, and I feel like we're supposed to just accept and move along.

There are other instances as well but to keep my review as short as I can, I'm just going to highlight these two. My point, though, is that these small details definitely add up over time and there's only so much disbelief I can suspend in one story.

Apart from that I don't think I have any other complaints. The language used is suitable for middle grade kids to enjoy and oh, I do love the little talks about mental health that we got regarding to Thomasina's mom.


Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free digital copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

A stunning, spellbinding tale of friendship, loss, love and the possibilities of mysterious magic. Thank you so much for the opportunity to read and review this gorgeous tale. Thomasina, Anne Henry and Inigo are such strong characters and The Frost King is delightfully dangerous and menacing. (I hope he gets his own tale one day.) This is a classic, in my opinion, with echoes of Frozen, The Dragon With a Chocolate Heart and fairytales of old. It’s rich, warm and heartbreaking all at once. The descriptions of the sweets are also fabulous.