Join Amelia, Florence, Grimaldi, Pumpy and Tangine on the adventure of a lifetime in the fifth book of the series: Absolutely darling! I can't believe I loved this story as much as I did but, by the end, I was absolutely hooked and kept thinking that if I ever have kids, I HAVE to read this to them! Amelia Fang is a feisty ten-year-old vampire, who loves spending time with her two best friends, Grimaldi the reaper and Florence, a rare breed of yeti. They live in Nocturnia, a land of darkness, ghosts and ghouls, where the sparkly magic of fairies and unicorns fills them with terror.

This was so much fun, and just felt really wholesome. Amelia is a lovely character, warm hearted and caring but not perfect. She's the perfect antedote to typical children's book characters with a love for everything grubby and spooky. Her friends are also really funny too, and I loved how gung-ho Florence is and how Grimaldi is a teeny tiny grim reaper, in charge of toad deaths. It's just so well thought out and described.Amelia Fang likes hugs from her pet pumpkin Squashy, and playing with her friends Florence and Grimaldi. What she doesn't like is her parents annual Barbaric Ball. She's always the only kid there, and it's boring. So when Prince Tagine joins her school, and gets an invite to the ball, Amelia is excited to make a new friend. Except Tagine is really mean and spoilt. When he takes Squashy, Amelia and her friends will stop at nothing to rescue him. Even if it means staying up during the daytime, when the creatures of light roam around. With glitter. The things that happened after that all, it reminded me a bit of the ending of Gravity Falls. I won't spoil anything, but that also felt a bit rushed. Then again, in both situations, I guess it just wasn't feasible to make it any longer, so I can forgive it. Amelia sets off determined to retrieve Squashy away from the awful prince but can she and will she succeeded and what is wrong with the prince to make him so awful?

All this considered I couldn't give Amelia Fang and the Barbaric Ball a very high rating, which makes me incredibly sad since this book had such potential.In book two, Amelia Fang and the Unicorn Lords, Amelia and her friends must brave the journey to the terrifying Kingdom of the Light to try to find Tangine’s missing mother, Queen Fairyweather. But with unicorns and angel-kittens lurking around every corner, who can they trust? And will they finally uncover the real villain keeping the kingdoms of Light and Dark as mortal enemies? Amelia's father is portrayed as a selfish male figure that doesn't care about his family in the least. Throughout the whole book he is seen solving crossword puzzles instead of helping his wife with preparations for an event that is clearly important to her or helping his daughter in a complicated situation she finds herself in. There is a particular scene where Amelia is amazed because her father puts his own teacup into the sink: And now we get to the bullying part. Tangine could have been a very interesting character - he's a spoiled member of the royal family and a future king. In his opinion, his social status gives him the right to torment everyone around him, his main target being Amelia. By the end of the book it's revealed that Tangine's mother has disappeared not long after he was born and he's father has spent all of his waking moment's looking for her therefore neglecting Tangine and leaving him in the care of his Mummy Maids. Which is a very real and common situation with today's bullies. I see what the author tried to do but unfortunately it was once again executed, in my opinion,in a wrong way. Tangine realises that what he does is wrong and hurtful to others only after he is himself humiliated by Amelia. This could have been done very differently - Amelia could have asked Tangine to return her beloved pet instead of breaking into his house. The thing is that there wasn't even an attempt to talk thing out - it's quite important to show children that thing can be resolved by speaking up. So much potential wasted. Also, believe it or not, there was also a twist to the plot that I WASN'T expecting in there, and that just brought the story up a whole nother level! Philippa Tsang, Marc Schmidheiny and Christoph Daniels at DCM Pictures and executive producers on Amelia Fang said, “Amelia Fang is joyful, funny and at its heart, it is a show about embracing difference in our society.”

But even if Amelia and her friends do find Vincent, will they be able to find their way home? Or will they be trapped in the toad afterlife FOREVER? When Amelia and her friends are invited to Florence's grandmother 350th birthday party, they are very excited! Grand-yeti Clemence lives in the Yeti Pits, a maze of candle-lit tunnels and caves carved into Yeti Mountain.

But with unicorns, fairies and angel-kittens lurking around every corner, who can they trust? And will they finally uncover the real villain keeping the kingdoms of Light and Dark as mortal enemies?