Dear friends,

We just had a visit with Miss Lindsay over the weekend and I overheard her telling Jen that she’s getting ready to meet her new third grade class. It feels like summer just started! But then we bookwyrms have never been all that good with keeping track of time. Especially when we’ve got our snouts stuck in a book like Serafina and the Splintered Heart by Robert Beatty.

Now that I think about it, it seems fitting that my last summer break book review wraps up the series I began at the beginning of summer. If you haven’t read them, be sure to check out my review of Serafina and the Black Cloak and Serafina and the Twisted Staff before reading any further.

No Spoilers, please!

Mr. Beatty left a note for us at the end of Serafina and the Splintered Heart asking us to be extra careful not to give anything important about the story away. I agree with him. The worst thing in the world for a bookwyrm is spoilers! I will say that I was not expecting the story to start out the way it did. It was brilliant!

Serafina’s story again centers around life at Biltmore Estate. And once again the lives of all those she holds dear are in danger. A huge storm is brewing in the mountains around Serafina’s home, but when she tries to warm her pa and the Vanderbilts of a new and nameless threat, she finds that alerting everyone to the coming danger is going to be a lot harder than she thought.

Like every good story, Serafina finds herself in plenty of trouble that she has to work her way out of and she’ll have to make some pretty bold choices along the way. She also discovers that the way she usually tackles problems isn’t the only way to face them—and she and her friends learn there’s much more to each other than they ever imagined possible.

Where one story ends, another begins!

As with the previous two books in the Serafina series, Mr. Beatty weaves a tale that’s filled with suspense, a dash of spooky, and plenty of danger. Every time I set the book down I had to pick it back up again, just so I could find out what happened next. All told, Serafina and the Splintered Heart took me five hours to read over two days.

Serafina and the Splintered Heart is 355 pages long and will be enjoyed by readers ten and older who are who aren’t easily frightened. (Note to mom and dad: There are fight scenes in which some of the characters get hurt, but there isn’t anything graphic.) This was my favorite of the three books, and I give it 5 extra spicy dark chocolate eggs.

I really like how story threads that started in Serafina and the Black Cloak are tied up in Serafina and the Splintered Heart, and I’m even happier that Mr. Beatty has said that we can expect to see more of Serafina in the future. In the meantime, he has a new book that was just released called Willa of the Wood, which takes place in Serafina’s world. I can’t wait to see what tales he has in store for us next!

Good luck with the new school year, friends! Don’t forget to make time to read for fun.

Note: No goods or services were exchanged for this review. The opinions expressed are the reviewer’s own.