Welcome to Miracle by Shara Curlett

Title: Welcome to Miracle

Author: Shara Curlett

Genre: Fantasy

Publisher: Scholastic Australia

Published: 1^st April 2025

Format: Paperback

Pages: 352

Price: $18.99

Synopsis: Juniper Mayfair is cursed by Chaos. Or so she has been told. And it is well known that children with Chaos may never visit Miracle, the private island that gifts its visitors magic for twenty-four hours. What others don’t realise, however, is that Juniper’s Chaos comes in the form of a pesky ghost-who-claims-he’s-not-a-ghost named Finnegan Frost. So, when Juniper receives an elusive ticket to Miracle, she believes all her wishes have come true. After all, that’s what the island promises. On the island, though, she discovers that nothing is as it seems. Miracle is not bringing wishes to life, but nightmares. Juniper and her new friends must uncover the secrets of Miracle to rid the world of Chaos-for good. But first, they must survive the island …

‘Prepare yourself for an unpredictable, relentless adventure! A magically charged story packed full of courage, self-belief and friendship-and many unexpected twists and turns!’ -Kate Foster, author of The Bravest World and Harriet Hound.

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Juniper Mayfair lives with her Aunt Muriel and their assistance dog, Bernie, in Antasea City. Her mother is off working, and her father died when she was young. And…Juniper is cursed with Chaos. Everyone has told her she’s been cursed with Chaos her whole life – it’s why she is taught at home, never really goes out, and has never been given a Chance to go to the island nearby. An island of magic and wonder called Miracle. Because everyone in Antasea knows that children with Chaos simply can’t visit Miracle, where the people who do get to go are given the gift of magic for twenty-four hours.

To top it all off, Juniper has a ghost-not-a-ghost following her around called Finnegan Frost. He’s been there her whole life – and the bad things have always happened when he is around. But when they arrive on Miracle, the island isn’t what they expected. Mum goes missing, Aunt Muriel goes missing and Oz, their guide, doesn’t seem to worry too much. Juniper makes two new friends – twins Izzy and Oscar, who are there with their father.

But the dreams are not magical and wondrous, they’re nightmares, fuelled by chaotic emotions and things that nobody can understand – except Juniper, Izzy and Oscar. It’s quite the adventure for them, and every time they make headway, there is a new obstacle. It’s not the perfect world they think it is – Miracle, and Antasea are tightly controlled and monitored, but in different ways. And everybody is determined to blame Chaos for everything, without realising what is really going on – that there could be more to the story than people realise. Miracle has its secrets too, and there is a sinister and mysterious undertone to everything going on. Not many people can see what is really happening, and the kids might need some extra help during the book. It’s a story with layers and secrets to uncover, where things that might seem funny or unrelated, or even insignificant, as though they’re been mentioned casually become important later on.

In all good fantasy novels, the threads of the story are woven in and out, so things aren’t too obvious, yet leave the reader wondering why something was mentioned in one place, what one character’s presence means, and what the changes along the way mean. Each element is cleverly used within the story, to inform and explain things without leaving too much to chance. Holding things back worked well, and I think the elements of discovery helped build the pacing and tension that kept me on my toes with it all as a reader, never quite knowing what to expect. This made it an engaging novel, and one where I knew things would be answered by, or even at the end – it definitely had that feel about it. A sense that there was something more curious about Finnegan than we knew at the start. More than him being a ghost-not-a-ghost who caused all the havoc around Juniper.

This is a fun book, one with great adventures, intriguing magic and mischief, where things are not always what they seem. It is one where it has all the elements one might expect from a fantasy portal book, with awesome differences that make it stand out as its own story. I loved this one and the curious ending made me wonder if there was something more.