This is probably more of a 2 1/2, but I'm willing to give it a 3. This would be an exciting and entertaining story for an upper elementary school child. After overhearing a plot to rob a house and blame a gypsy, two boys, along with their father and policeman friend, try to figure out which house is in danger of being robbed, which gypsy to warn about being framed, and who the real culprits are.

There were some twists and plenty of exciting moments to keep kids interested. I liked the use of gypsies in the story because it exposes children to a culture they probably know little about, and it also could open up interesting discussions about some of the people in the village disliking the gypsies, stereotypes, racism, etc.

Mechanically, this book needed some polish. There were several typos and punctuation errors. There were inconsistencies with names: sometimes it was the Fair, others it was the Fayre; Serafina was spelled with a ph once, Luka is referred to as Lukas, etc. Even though this book description says its for ages 7-11, I think the sentence structure would be a bit complex for younger readers. Many of the sentences are very long and almost a bit run-on, which is hard for lower level readers to comprehend.

Overall, a fun, exciting story that just needed a good editor to tighten things up.

I read an advance ebook copy of this story via NetGalley.