Bestselling author Alexandra Christo, author of TikTok sensation To Kill a Kingdom, introduces her new book, The Night Hunt (Hot Key Books), a dark... As well as honing her detective skills, Fayson learns that being wealthy doesn’t necessarily make people happy, as the most valuable things in life, such as love, kindness and friendship, can’t be bought. It is a vibrant, colourful, thoughtful and exciting mystery story. I am delighted that it is the first in the series featuring 'Di Island Crew’ and look forward to meeting each and every diverse character as they develop more sleuthing skills.

The Case of the Lighthouse Intruder is such a fun mystery adventure, and this promises to be the start of an excellent new series! The winners of the Diverse Book Awards 2023 have been announced, with one winner from each of the four categories announced: Picture book, Children... Moving from one part of the world to another is an exciting experience not least because experiences in both places will be so very different and often lend themselves perfectly to storytelling. Kereen Getten grew up in Jamaica before moving to Birmingham (UK). She has used this opportunity to tell stories about her childhood which was often spent climbing fruit trees in the family garden and eating as many fruits as possible without being caught! From this might you guess that she loves to write about mysteries, and her latest The Case of the Lighthouse Intruder takes us into the world of Di Island Crew and their first.

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I'm a huge fan of Kereen's When Life Gives You Mangoes, so I was very, very excited to read The Case Of The Lighthouse Intruder, and it did not disappoint in the slightest I'm so happy this is going to be a series because I'm so invested! This was a really interesting book, I liked the setting of it being on a private lighthouse island in Jamaica it was so fascinating to me, and I love lighthouses and stories about them so it was just beautiful. I loved the illustrations before each chapter a really great little addition to the story. Ongoing Covid restrictions, reduced air and freight capacity, high volumes and winter weather conditions are all impacting transportation and local delivery across the globe. The second book, The Case of the Haunted Wardrobe, will come in October 2023, and The Case of the Abandoned Boat in 2024. The series follows Getten’s novels When Life Gives You Mangoes (Pushkin Children’s Books) and If You Read This (Pushkin Children’s Books). An absolutely charming, lively and fun mystery adventure set on a lush Caribbean island, introducing the reader to an engaging , feisty and likeable young character with a love of crime-busting stories. 12-year-old aspiring detective, Fayson, is unexpectedly invited to her (rich) cousin's summer holiday home. Happy enough in her book-filled world of mysteries to solve, Fayson isn't all that keen. However, her mama, working all the hours she can as a nurse to make ends somehow meet, insists that she go.

On the mystery side, there's a gang of kids on a private island just off Jamaica who have seen someone in a lighthouse who shouldn't be there, and they've been unable to figure out who they are or what they're up to in there despite repeated attempts. When Fayson arrives on the island with her cousins, who are both in the gang already, she's challenged to solve the mystery in three days. What follows is a series of investigations, sleepovers, stakeouts, break ins, a lot of deductive thinking and a classic reveal. What a unique and interesting mystery, I honestly had no clue who was doing it, who the shadow was at all not once. It was so fascinating seeing Fayson linking it all together and solving who it was and why they were doing it.Fayson and her mother live in a small city apartment in Jamaica, where money is tight, despite Mama working long hours as a nurse. Fayson reluctantly agrees to spend half term with her annoying twin cousins, Aaron and Omar, but worries that she’ll feel out of place in their fancy holiday home on an island off the Jamaican coast.

Why are Omar and Aaron so keen for Fayson to join them on the island? After all, they’ve only ever teased her relentlessly and then boasted of their wealth? However, it seems they’re desperate! What’s more, although Fayson and her mother are perfectly happy in their city life, Fayson’s mother wants her to go.Fayson is invited to stay on a private island with her cousins she hasn’t seen in years to help solve a mystery. The mystery of the shadow in the lighthouse each night. She struggles to fit in with the lifestyle of everyone on the island, but the mystery and solving it keeps her going even in the toughest times. It's just Fayson and her Mum at home and money is tight, even though her Mother works hard as a nurse she doesn't have a lot of disposable income to be able to do the fun stuff with Fayson. Coffee house Caffè Nero has announced the 16-strong shortlist for the inaugural Nero Book Awards, recognising the outstanding books of the past 12... On arrival in her refined and intimidating new surroundings, Fayson discovers that her cousins and the rest of The Greatest Gang OF All Time, are counting on her crime-busting talents to solve the island's own shadowy mystery of a figure spotted over at the lighthouse.

I liked meeting the big eclectic group, each of them were so different but it made the dynamic really work well and I enjoyed seeing the friendship grow within the group. I also liked that even though Fayson didn’t feel like she fitted in, she found her place with them in the end. Fayson lives with her mother and dreams of becoming a detective. Until she grows up, she invents mysteries only she can solve – her most recent one being a major assassination plot against the King of England. A sudden invitation to join her cousins – rarely seen and not particularly liked – jolts her out of her reveries and into a real-life mystery on the holiday island to which they all travel. Fayson is not particularly fond of her wealthy aunt and uncle either – she feels they are always trying to make her something she is not: correcting her English from her preferred Patwah and dressing her differently from her usual clothes. She also finds the island life stifling, unreal, with too many people pretending to be something they are not. She longs for what she regards as the genuine life she has with her mother, which is materially poorer but which she thinks is more honest. I didn’t like her aunt and uncle, especially the uncle he was so nasty and mean, even when he explained why he was forcing her to speak differently he never once apologised for the way he was doing it. Not for belittling and degrading her making her feel like she was worthless and less than him because she spoke a different language to him. I really hated the mis-treatment towards her. The Case of the Lighthouse Intruder is the first book in the series, and will publish in June 2023. It tells the story of six friends who investigate cases on a small island off the coast of Jamaica. Odedina said: “Kereen has such a flair for catching a child’s voice; their energy and passion for life. Fayson, around whom these heart-warming adventure stories are built, is a high-spirited irrepressible young person who readers are certain to fall in love with.”

It's clearly aimed at the younger end of the middle grade market. It is fairly short, illustrated beautifully by Leah Jacobs-Gordon, and there's very little peril in it. The worst danger is the threat of being thrown off of the island. But it doesn't suffer for any of that. What we get is a very accessible, very fun little mystery, with a main character we can really root for!