The Bookseller’s Apprentice by Amelia Mellor

Title: The Bookseller’s Apprentice

Author: Amelia Mellor

Genre: Historical Fiction, Fantasy

Publisher: Affirm Press

Published: 27^th September 2022

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 320

Price: $19.99

Synopsis: Return to Amelia Mellor’s magical Melbourne in the prequel to best-seller The Grandest Bookshop in the World.

Twelve-year-old Billy Pyke has a talent for sorting things out, whether it’s his chaotic family home or the busy book stall at Paddy’s Market. In 1871, the market is the loud, smelly, marvellous heart of Melbourne, and Billy is delighted to work at the book stall there for the eccentric Mr Cole. When his new friend Kezia warns him of a sinister magician called the Obscurosmith, Billy can’t believe her stories of magical deals gone horribly wrong – until he sees them happening. And the night that the Obscurosmith crosses a terrifying and dangerous line, Billy realises something: if he wants the Obscurosmith stopped, he’ll have to do it himself.

Award-winning author Amelia Mellor delivers another race-against-time adventure in this action-packed prequel to The Grandest Bookshop in the World. Loaded with tricks, riddles, magic and mayhem, The Bookseller’s Apprentice is perfect for Mellor fans and newcomers alike.

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In 1871, twenty-two years before Amelia’s first book, The Grandest Bookshop in the World is set, Billy Pyke is twelve years old, and looking for a job to help support his family. He applies for a job at Cole’s Books at Paddy’s Markets in Melbourne, something he’d prefer to working in the factory with his father making nails. He makes a new friend – Kezia – who works at the book stall, and she warns him about the sinister magician known as the Obscurosmith – Maximillian Magnus. But Magnus has set his sights on Billy, and is determined to make a nefarious deal with him. Billy’s determination to stand up to the Obscurosmith puts him in danger and soon he finds himself in a duel of minds and magic with his enemy, and a world filled with riddles and tricks, mixed in with magic and mayhem as Billy tries to thwart the enemy and get home to his growing family before he disappears from the world and his family forever.

This is a prequel to Amelia’s previous book, and it is just as delightful as the first. Filled with magic mixed in with history – real people and places, it captures the magic of books and education in a world when people like Billy had to fight for an education over being pushed into employment early on to support the family as well as doing everything at home to make sure his siblings were ready for the day. I felt for Billy – forced out of school, forced to take so much responsibility, and at the same time, he felt like he was being ignored all the time by his parents. He was closest to Emma and Frankie – and I loved that relationship, but it was his friendship with Kezia that made the novel really shine for me.

The magical and mysterious feeling of the first book is back, and we get to see how Cole’s Book Arcade came to be, which leads into Pearl and Vally’s story of The Grandest Bookshop in the World. I loved seeing Billy as a kid, and the Obscurosmith is definitely one of those characters you do not want to meet – ever. He’s scary and tricky, and someone that is not easily thwarted. Magic abounds in this new book just as much as the first one, and I loved the way the magic and fantasy is woven in with the history and the real people – Edward Cole and Billy Pyke, whose stories have formed an important part of these stories and who bring history to life whilst celebrating a love of books – so these books are perfect for avid readers. I would have loved to visit Cole’s Book Arcade – even the market stall sounds like a place I would have loved to visit or even work out (perhaps without the Obscurosmith, though). We get to see how everything starts out, but the story alone makes sense without having read the other book, and I feel like they could be read in any order.

This is one of those books that I have fallen in love with – and that has one of the most inviting covers I have ever seen. I think it will be well-received and much loved as it celebrates books and words, riddles and tricks in a way that engages the reader in new and magical ways.