Book Review – The Star-Spun Web by Sinéad O’Hart

With her passion for scientific experimentation and her pet tarantula Violet, Tess de Sousa is no ordinary orphan.

When a stranger shows up at Ackerbee’s Home for Lost and Foundlings, claiming to be a distant relative come to adopt her, Tess hopes to find some answers to her mysterious origins. But as she adjusts to her new life at Roedeer Lodge, it becomes clear that Norton F. Cleat knows more about Tess – and the strange star-shaped device left with her when she was abandoned as a baby – than he’s letting on.

And when Tess discovers that the Starspinner is the gateway between her world and a parallel world in which war rages, she realizes she may be the key to a terrible plan. A plan she must stop at all costs…

My rating:

I received this book from the publisher via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed the concept of the Star-Spun web. And it has really lovely friendships in it, which is always lovely. And I love that she has a pet spider.

I also adore Miss Ackerbee for being so matter of fact about it all! That made me laugh. It was so refreshing to have an adult figure it out and tell the main character rather than not believing them.

I feel there were a few unanswered questions, about things like why Violet and Moose are so special. Though I think a good few will be answered in a next book (it set up so beautifully I have to assume there is one!) about things like who the other people interested in the device are, and what happened with Tess’s parents. I really hope that this is picked up in a second book!

It’s also great to see Tess so concentrating on science, and I would have enjoyed a couple more scenes on that, showing all the things she was looking into and why or precious successes. Maybe this is because I’m a science nerd though 😂 I really liked her determination and focus, and her friendships that she makes along the way.

Buy The Star-Spun Web from Amazon UK (affiliate link)