All's Fairy in Love and War

Avalon: Web of Magic #8

by Rachel Roberts

To Kara's astonishment, she discovers that a portal has opened in her bedroom closet and two goblins have fallen through! They refuse to return to the fairy realms and be drafted for an impending war. In an attempt to roust the pesky creatures, Kara falls through the portal, smack into the middle of a huge war. Kara meets Queen Selinda, who appoints Kara as a Fairy Princess and assigns her an impossible to put an end to the war using her diplomatic skills. All's Fairy In Love And War is the eighth book in Web of Magic , a twelve-book fantasy series for middle grade readers. Through their magical journey, the teenage heroines discover who they really are . . . and run into plenty of good guys, bad guys, and cute guys. Out of print for two years, Seven Seas is pleased to return the Avalon series to print in editions targeted for today's readers, with new manga-style covers and interior illustrations.

Genres: Fantasy, Middle Grade, Fiction, Childrens, Magic, Young Adult, Adventure

216 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2003

About the author

Rachel Roberts adores magic, adventure, animals, and music. Rachel is an devoted campaigner with animal rights and protection of wild places organizations. Rachel’s has been reading ever since she could first carry a book and enjoys getting lost in a fantastic story. Rachel has been a writer as well as a editor her entire career. Rachel says the majority of concepts for her stories and characters appear on lengthy hikes. She brings a little notepad, just for jotting down thoughts. Afterward at her house Rachel builds on the ideas together with feline friends, Attila and Raider. She also is in love with music, playing the piano, flute, as well as learning to play guitar.

Avalon: Web of Magic is Rachel’s very first series of novels.

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the eighth instalment of the Avalon series Kara is summoned to the fairy realms in order to prevent five magical kingdoms from going to war. There’s the Fairies, trolls, goblins, elves and dwarves, all with their own king and queen to rule them. This book kind of gave me the impression of Alice in wonderland with all the jumping through mirrors, which are actually portals. Kara’s job is simple, bond with a firemental stallion, easier said than done, and jump through a series of mirrors and collect four talismans made from earth, air, water and fire in hopes of attracting a power crystal from Avalon. Piece of cake right? But there’s someone hiding, pretending to be good, he betrays his own people in the end. Prince Lorren reminded me of Robin Hood, stealing from the rich to give to the poor, he does that with magic. I wasn’t a fan of the whole Shakespeare play at Kara’s school, I’ve never been into poetry and all that crap. Not to mention how they talked back then just sounds ridiculous. The dragonflies play a pretty solid role in this book, acting as magical cell phones for the mages whilst they’re separated. I’d love to have those dragonflies as pets, they’re beyond adorable. Kara is considered a princess by everyone who meets her in this book, even her talking magical accessories. There’s a brush and a comb, a compact, and puff doggie. They all talk and all want to make Kara look gorgeous. So now that the dark sorceress has teamed up with the spider witch, things should definitely get more interesting. You’d think they’d just give up, it’s obvious no matter how hard they try, good always triumphs evil. I don’t understand why they’d want to destroy such beautiful places with wonderful animals. There always has to be a villain, in this case, two. The fairy realms and Aldenmor sound like beautiful places that I’d love to live, I’d love to be a mage and bond with magical animals. I’ve noticed that the books are a bit thicker than the previous seven books, those ones only went up to a hundred and eighty or a hundred and ninety pages. Books eight, nine, ten eleven and twelve are just over two hundred and ten pages or so. I love thick books, I think the first seven books could’ve had a lot more pages, especially the first three. I think Rachel could’ve easily made each book well over three hundred pages each, she could’ve gone into more detail and background about the magical animals and where they come from. This series targets kids from ages eight to twelve, but that doesn’t mean the books can’t be more than two hundred pages. A hundred and ninety pages is super easy to read in a short time, I could easily finish one book within three hours or so, and that’s not just because I’m an adult. Even and eleven year old avid reader could handle three hundred pages or more. I love this series, so glad I bought them online.

[Lire-une-passion · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terminé et j'ai bien aimé ! C'est assez drôle, mais à chaque fois, je constate que les tomes sur Kara sont ceux que j'aime le moins, même si je passe un bon moment à chaque fois. Malgré tout, j'ai trouvé les messages derrière cette histoire très bien. Même si j'avais du mal à imaginer les lieux et les actions, il n'en est pas moins que c'est une saga que j'apprécie vraiment beaucoup.

[Bethany Huang · Rating 5 out of 5]

All's Fairy in love and war is one of my favorites. Kara is tugged into the fairy realm through her closet, and sees the wonderful beauty of the faierieland like sh's never seen before. She is treated like a princess and has fun at the midnight ball. Until things take a turn for disaster....

[Hannah Belyea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kara is desperate to get away from her uncontrollable magic, but when she is dragged into the Fairy Realm and tasked with stopping a war between the likes of elves, dwarves and trolls, the upcoming school play becomes the least of her worries - especially with Lyra's life on the line! Roberts brings fans another imaginative entry, slightly congested but every bit as entertaining and heartwarming as its predecessors. Can Kara trust anyone anymore, or has she simply become a prize to be fought over?

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember this being one of my favorite books of the series, and I remember why. Not only do you see some growth in Roberts’ writing, but this introduces so many exciting new elements to the world-building, and it makes me almost sad this is a short middle grade story that can’t expand way more on the world. Kara’s character develops leaps and bounds and now she’s my favorite, and I love how Roberts makes her femininity and girlyness her strength.

Also, Lorren is by far my favorite romance. He was the OG cool mysterious Fae (kinda) love interest before it was popular.

[Twyla · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite part was when Kara found the power crystal, stopped Tangoo, and bright peace to the goblins and fairies. My least favorite part was when Tangoo betrayed Kara and the goblins, and was actually evil. My favorite character was Starfire, because he tried to help Kara, without thinking about himself as much as he did before he bonded with her. My least favorite character was Tangoo, because he pretended he was good, but was actually on the side of the dark sorceress the whole time.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aaaaaaand Kara FINALLY GETS IT! Give her a hand, because after eight books, she finally figures out that the world doesn’t revolve around her. She’s magically stolen away to the Fairy Realm, where she proceeds to accidentally turn her familiar Lyra to melting quicksilver. To fix this, she has to find some magic power crystals with a horse made of fire, while Adriane and Emily cover for her on Earth. Writing sucks as usual, but bonus points for Kara finally getting her head in the game.

[Sundra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book follows Kara, the girly girl in the group as she again struggles with her power. I like that while Kara is considered the popular girl, she worries that she does not belong and is willing to admit when she's wrong. Good character traits for young girls to admire.
One note - I am surprised that in this addition, the dragonflies can pronounce words entirely, even non-simple ones like we've seen them do in previous books. Just a little inconsistent I think.

[Brianna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loving Kara’s growth. It’s been a long time coming.

[Dots]

Read these when I was a kid and looooveeeed them. :D
Glad I found them again.

[Bee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really cute book, though to be honest I wasn't the correct reader for it. Picked it up due to my quest to read all fairy related literature, but it's book 8 in a 12 book series. Didn't think that would matter too much if I did some wikipedia-ing to get me caught up on the story so far. Unfortunately it did matter- Oops! (¯―¯٥)

That being said, I really enjoyed the concept of this series and the story was interesting. My only real complaint was that sometimes the dialogue was really unnatural and it pulled me out of the story. Would a bad guy really say a parody of "twinkle twinkle little star" when he's in the middle of unleashing his master plan?? No. No he wouldn't. But this one did. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I want to go back now and read the first seven so that I can fully enjoy what was happening in this book. It definitely seems like a series I would enjoy. (´･ᴗ･`)

Rating: 2.5/5 ☆'s

[Ryofire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just gonna say this: I'm 20, and I still enjoy this series. I started reading it when I was in Elementary School and I've reread it numerous times between new books and after new books came out.

FYI, this is a Kara book.

Anyway. This series, like most long series, has its ups and its downs. "All's Fairy in Love and War" borrows a few more cliches than some of the other books, which is part of the reason I give it a lower rating than some of the others. Roberts does play a little bit, as usual, so it's still fun to read. I always enjoy seeing Kara as grow as an admirable character, which always happens in her books in some way, even if the novel doesn't end on a high note.

Keep an eye on the Goblin Prince. He's important later.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book starts off when a girl named Kara is doing Shakespere's Midsummer Night's Dream. One night a portal opens up in her closet and Kara gets sucked in two days before her peformance. Kara is smack dab in the middle of impending war, and meets a mysterious boy with dark secrets. She will have to bond with a stallion made of fire because she is the only one who can bring peace between the fairies and the goblins, and if she fails it could mean the destruction of the Fairy Realms.

[Beka Burningham · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's so intense and you really get dragged in. You really want to know about the 'Forest Prince' and if he's a good guy or a bad guy. The ending leaves you breathless. You really fear for the other characters in the book. Not know how it will turn out.

[Jennifer Datus · Rating 4 out of 5]

after the Kara (blazing star) was sucked into a portal, she has fond herself in the fairy Realms. Where Lyra a fairy like cat is turn to a melting stone and now Kara must find a stone with healing powers before it is to lat.

[Andy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmm. I'm rather confused right now. I must have a really old copy because mine has a 2 on the spine and inside the cover it says book two. There must have been a volume change for the reprint? Weird. It's not published by Scholastic like my book 1 of Circles in the Stream is.

[Gabby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome, my favorite of the whole series, I love Lorren and Tasha and Kara and Starfire and Lyra. Beautiful. Tragic, funny, romantic, adventurous, sad, awesome, romantic, did I already say that? I don't care.

[Kira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very awesome. Beautiful artwork as usual.

[boots mama · Rating 5 out of 5]

awesome

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read these when I was younger but I would still read them now. They have enough magic in them to entertain anybody.

[Ayano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book, and I loved it!

[Phantom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kara

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though it was confusing at times, because of all the traveling through the portal, I enjoyed the book.

[Shay · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a very elegant plot. This one wasn't may favorite of the series, but it was certainly amazing!

[Jocelyn Montalvo Cullum]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12541461

[Aida · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book scared me! I thought one of my favorite characters was going to die :(

[Mark]

Another good book, this time focused on Kara. Might be a bit too stereotypically girly, though.