oh this is middle grade at its absolute FINEST love ally carter

So so so good! Gosh do I love a good middle grade mystery and this one is full of intrigue and action. The kids are all heartwarming and the family they build is beautiful. This is definitely a great book for kids, but also a really fun book for parents to read aloud. This book is full of treasure, missing persons, a sunken ship, and hidden passages. I am greatly looking forward to the second book.

Winterborne Home is a place where orphans can be invited to live in. A place which they can finally call home. April is one of these orphans who's mother left her at the age of three with a mysterious key around her neck with the unspoken promise to come back. Whether it is for April or the key remains uncertain. In this novel, Gabriel Winterborne, the heir to the Winterborne title and fortune, has been missing for ten years. April, Violet and Tim are all welcomed into Winterborne Home at the same time, along with Sadie and Colin (who were there already), they try to navigate the large mansion and tackle the mysteries surrounding the home. I loved this book, and it would have gotten five stars, however the logic and plot were just short of five stars, which brought my rating down to a high four stars. I absolutely adored the characters and the atmosphere that Ally Carter brought to life. Her writing in this novel was better than her writing in the Gallagher Girls novels, which I read when I was younger and also loved. She painted details well, and the characters, especially April, were so 3D and amazing and distinct from each other. I'm so excited to read the next book in the series!

*I got this book for review for the publisher* I found this book to such a fun a adventure read. I think the summary really described this book perfecting it is basically annie meets Batman. I really was invested in the mystery that took place nd loved the setting and the world in this novel. I also really enjoyed the main character. I thought this book was also super fast pace and very engaging. I wish the side characters were developed throughout the whole book and not just towards the end. I did not feel the characters as a group until the very end and I misses that. Some of the smaller world builiding elements like smaller friendship moments and did not occur and I missed that in the start o the book. I really did enjoy this read and will def keep reading this series in the future.

When April's mother left her at the orphanage, the only thing she gave her was a mysterious key, and then told her that she would be back soon. April believed her mother and has not given up hope that she will one day show up to take her home. In the meantime, April has been in 12 different homes in 10 years, but after setting fire to a museum when she broke in after hours to try to open a small box with her key, Isabella Nelson takes April to Winterborne House. Along with Tim and Violet who are also going to Winterborne House, they arrive to find an energetic girl named Sadie who already lives there. Winterborne House is strange with many secrets, and April believes it has a connection with the key her mother gave her 10 years before. In her debut middle grade novel, Ally Carter has taken the elements that make her YA books so enjoyable and applied them to this book. The characters are quirky and fun, but they all have secrets of their own. The mystery of the Winterborne Home leads to other questions about who is the last surviving member of the Winterborne family and what does April's mysterious key unlock. The story includes several sequences of fast-paced action and suspense. Overall, this is a very good middle grade novel and the beginning of a promising series.