MACMILLAN Rosa By Starlight.

by Hilary McKay, Keith Robinson (Illustrator)

MACMILLAN Rosa By Starlight ABISBOOK MACMILLAN.

240 pages, Paperback

Published July 10, 2025

About the author

Hilary McKay was born in Boston, Lincolnshire and is the eldest of four girls. From a very early age she read voraciously and grew up in a household of readers. Hilary says of herself as a child "I anaesthetised myself against the big bad world with large doses of literature. The local library was as familiar to me as my own home."

After reading Botany and Zoology at St. Andrew's University Hilary then went on to work as a biochemist in an Analysis Department. Hilary enjoyed the work but at the same time had a burning desire to write. After the birth of her two children, Hilary wanted to devote more time to bringing up her children and writing so decided to leave her job.

One of the best things about being a writer, says Hilary, is receiving letters from children. She wishes that she had written to authors as a child, but it never occurred to her to contact them

Hilary now lives in a small village in Derbyshire with her family. When not writing Hilary loves walking, reading, and having friends to stay.

Reviews

[Desirée · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Hilary McKay, have loved her books for twenty years and keep returning to them, but this one wasn't for me. Rosa is much less spirited than her other main characters, and though there is a good reason for that and the story would probably not work with a fierce, independent heroine, I still didn't warm to her. The ending was nice, though.

[Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hilary McKay is one of my favourite children's authors, so it pains me to give this book a low rating.

The books starts so similarly to Saffy's backstory in "Saffy's Angel" that I was a little confused about whether this story belonged to those series of books.

Rosa has a tragic childhood with an aunt and uncle who are uncaring, horrible and have a mania for replacing grass with artificial grass - its like they've marched over from a Roald Dahl story.

Magic is real in this world and appears to be linked to cats. I don't understand the point of either the cats or the magic. The magic appears to be manipulating events to get Rosa to Venice but it comes across as powerful, random, and unhelpful to Rosa. You would think magic powerful enough to stop time might be able to help an unhappy child earlier than when she is on the brink of death.

The author wants us to think Rosa has ended up with a better family by the end of the book, but this new family are people who were happy to take an unaccompanied minor into their hotel, give her an unsafe room, and then ignore her. In fact, they were quite unfriendly until they suddenly realised who's daughter she was.

I liked Rosa, who was brave and always grateful for whatever pittance she got. I felt she deserved better all round.

I'm giving this review an extra star because the descriptions of Venice are fabulous and made me feel like I was back there.