Set in a wonderfully vibrant world with a cast of quirky characters, I was immediately immersed in this magic school plot. Filled with magic, adventure, twists and turns, all wrapped together with true friendship. Pure imagination with fun and laughter mixed throughout, I completely fell in love and can’t wait for more from this author!

An excellent read with a lovely twist at the end. A magical fantasy with a bit of mystery and heroism, this works so well for the 9-14 years age range.

Harper doesn't know abut her magical powers until she comes of age and gets swept away to the Spectaculars' travelling boarding school in the Hidden Peaks. However. her excitement at the wonder of it all and her developing magic at tainted by the increasing threat of the four curses starts to haunt the show and threaten her new life.

I loved the very mysterious start to the book and Harper is a great protagonist, a heroine who prefers dragons to knights in shining armour! I was also pleased that for once, the class bully wasn't the best at everything and favoured by all the teachers.

I was awestruck by this whole world which is built around spectacular performances and theatres. All running on Star-Stuff! There is so much to amaze, like a train that turns into the Grand Wondria Music Hall and Theatre, the Dreamscape Transit System that lets you visit with people in your dreams, and the super-cool lessons that the apprentices learn. Can you Imagine a cable car system that runs on the complaints of commuters, that would be extremely efficient in London!

The mystery of the four curses was cleverly written and I must admit it kept me guessing all the way through. I could not work out who was behind the sinister events and actually suspected completely the wrong person.

A delightfully magical new series that captures the essence of <i>The Greatest Showman</i>, <i>Nevermoor</i>, and <i>X-men</i>. but with a vividly grandiose flare!

Garnish does a wonderful job at capturing drama and adventure with mystical powers, which makes the perfect concoction for the three lovable, funny and quirky protagonists. There was so much exciting things happening at each turn of the page, although I found it sometimes a bit much to take it all in at times

The authors' words are easy without sacrificing on imagination, and excellent storytelling. The world is so creative and practically bursting with magic that you are immediately enveloped in Garnish's mystical series and left with wanting more.

Thank you to NetGalley and Usborne Publishing for this eARC in exchange for an honest review

this was awesomely amazing!!
I read this to my son, niece and nephew over summer holidays. we loved reading this!
We loved the main characters and the adventure kept us reading more.

This is a really fun take on a magical boarding school story! It has a little bit of a dystopian bent to it, which surprised me at first, but I really liked the way the magical community was hidden and the theatrical elements of the magical world. It’s fast-paced and exciting; I enjoyed the idea of the sinister animals that embodied the curses very much. If you like a magical school story or theatre story, with all the classic middle grade tropes that brings, this is a very good example.

Spectaculars are beings with unique performance abilities bestowed on them by ‘StarStuff’. It enhances abilities already there and the ability is then passed on to their children. Some Spectaculars are musically gifted, whilst others are actors, or gifted with mechanics or costumes. Spectaculars are listed as a dangerous species and they are trying to get to gateways to travel to The Hidden Peaks to seek refuge, but they only have one day to travel.
5 years later and now all the Spectaculars have been driven out of The Smoke by the minister, the theatres are deserted. Harper Woolfe lives with her mum in the Theatre Borough and doesn’t remember a time when it was once buzzing with activity. She has vague memories of a boy with blue hair but her mum tells her she must have made him up.
In the meantime, something strange is going on in The Hidden Peaks and there are rumours about the four curses spreading amongst the Spectaculars. Harper soon finds herself thrown headlong into the world of the Spectaculars and the travelling theatre, The Wondria, trying to discover whether there’s any truth to the rumours about the curses.
I loved the fast pace of the action, the twists and turns that the story took, and of course, the magic of the Spectaculars. I also loved the map of The Hidden Peaks at the start of the book - all books should have a map! A great book for fans of ‘Nevermoor’, I can imagine lots of children being captivated by this wonderful story and I can’t wait for more adventures with the Spectaculars!

The Spectaculars is a fantastic amalgamation of the world of theatre with the world of magic. This is a boarding school story with a difference containing some exceptional twists. I was enticed to read this book by the beautiful cover illustrated by Nathan Collins. However, it took me a while to get into the story and feel any rapport for the main protagonist, eleven year old Harper Woolfe, but after the first three chapters I was hooked.

Trick is my favourite character and in a lot of the ways he carries the book. He comes across as mischievous, but he also has a calm and reassuring side to his nature. He is always very supportive of Harper.

This well-crafted story reminded me in places of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust and J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series but instead of a sorting hat there is a teapot, which brews the perfect tea for their character and instead of the fallen star being human they are animals.

This novel is a fascinating look at how superstition can lead to dramatic over-reactions. Jodie Garnish shows a real talent for creating imaginative worlds as well as some incredible, unique magical creatures, such as a ‘kobold’ called Helja, who can shape-shift into a broom and a mangle. Her world building is elaborate and impressive. One of my favourite settings is the ingenious magical library where the bookshelves look like they are suspended in the air high above their heads.

I particularly enjoyed the excellent twist at the end when the real antagonist is revealed with a surprising secret.

Ideal for readers 8+. This book would be a beautiful addition to libraries and school bookshelves.

The Spectaculars is a fast paced, imaginative and immersive addition to the fantasy genre. Set in a magical boarding school for theatre performers, the story follows Harper as she learns her true identify, enters an unknown world and begins her training. Unfortunately for her, Harper finds herself and her theatre immersed in peril almost immediately. With the help of her friends, can Harper save her school?

I enjoyed this book and can see that it would be popular amongst young readers. I loved the world building of Jodie Garnish and found so much of this book to be original and unpredictable. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

The Spectaculars is spectacular!

I'm sorry, I had to say it, but it is true. This is a really fun, cool, magical book.

It opens in the middle of a very dramatic scene, as an unknown group of people try to escape on a tram into the mountains. After that goes quite well, with just a little bit of tragedy the novel jumps ahead five years to where it picks up the main narrative. Harper, one of the young children on the tram, is now older and living a fairly dull life in a fairly dull town. Luckily it isn't long before she's whisked away to a much more magical life in a much more magical world, because this definitely isn't a fairly dull book!

She finds herself in her slippers and dressing gown in a theatre where she's about to being a magical apprenticeship and become a Spectacular! Spectaculars are spell weavers who use star light and star dust to add magical effects to their performances, costumes, set designs and everything else that's part of the theatre world.

That's one of the great strengths of this book, it beautifully blends the whole learning how to do magic in a world you never really knew thing with theatre school, and it just works so well. Everyone knows there's magic in theatre already, right? Well how about if you could actually create costumes which shift and change with magic? What if you could summon magical effects throughout the auditorium while singing your aria or change your appearance as your death monologue goes on and on and on? It's such a perfect fit, and Jodie Garnish pulls it off with style.

There's a wider world out there though, and a theatre built on a tram is a great way to see it! The Wonderia is a travelling theatre, allowing us to see little glimpses of so many other fascinating locations, from magical libraries to underwater performances by mermaid orchestras. We see witches and fae and goblins and it just left me wanting to explore more of this world.

There is, of course, an overarching plot beyond just magical theatre school, and it's a good one too. Magic, for the Spectaculars at least, is built on starlight. (Witches have their own very peculiar form of spellcasting that I just loved!) However, there were thirteen stars that fell when the tram first passed through the mountain portal, and they've never been found. There are also four curses, taking animal form in a decidedly creepy way, one of which, Misfortune, is stalking the Wonderia theatre causing terrible and escalating accidents. There are grim hunters and unlikely allies and a few very well kept secrets, and it is all, quite honestly, spectacular.