Alice-Miranda Keeps the Beat by Jacqueline Harvey

Title: Alice-Miranda Keeps the Beat

Author: Jacqueline Harvey

Genre: Fiction/Mystery

Publisher: Puffin

Published: 4^th June 2019

Format: Paperback

Pages: 384

Price: $16.99

Synopsis: And a one, two, three, hit it!

After a disastrous fire in the village leaves a family without a home, Alice-Miranda and her friends pitch in to help. They decide to hold a music festival to raise funds. The only trouble is, not everyone’s as keen on the idea.

Things are also heating up in Winchesterfield-Downsfordvale Academy for Proper Young Ladies with Miss Reedy at the helm. The arrival of a new teacher, a deputy turned diva and an entire faculty of disgruntled staff sees tempers flare. Has the power gone to Miss Reedy’s head or is there a sinister hand at play? One thing is for certain: there’s no smoke without fire.

Alice-Miranda is put to the test. Can she ensure the festival, with its many secrets and surprises, hits all the right notes?

~*~

Everyone pitches into help after a devastating fire that destroys a favourite local restaurant run by the Abbouds and their family home. Thanks to Alice-Miranda and her friends, the family survived, with everyone pitching into help while Mr Abboud is in hospital. Everyone except Caprice, it seems. But there’s drama at the school. Miss Grimm is still on maternity leave, and Miss Reedy is running the school, dealing with the stress of everything she has to do, and being at the helm when the new English teacher, Ms Tabitha Crowley starts. Surely a new staff member wanting to help out in any way she can with the Winchester-Fayle Singers and the festival to help out the Abbouds is a good thing?

And someone is creating tension between Miss Reedy and the rest of the teaching staff, making everything harder, and pushing friendships to the limit. So who is behind it and why? What could they gain from these tensions and arguments that are starting to affect the school. The good publicity from what Alice-Miranda and her friends have done could be a good thing for the school and its prospective students. Yet, nothing seems to be running smoothly.

The eighteenth Alice-Miranda book is a wonderful addition to the series. It shows how a community comes together after a tragedy to step in, even when there are tensions between people, and someone is trying to undermine everyone else around them. Or, like with Caprice, tries to act like her achievements are better and more important than what Alice-Miranda and her friends have done. I could see how everyone was on edge with her in this book, because she was definitely in fine form thinking she was better than everyone else. And that her singing achievement was more important than saving lives!

Alice-Miranda is ten now, and for the past few books, she has been at Caledonia Manor, the secondary school. She’s with her friends, and taking on more challenging work. In this book, she has her own secrets that move through the book, and I loved this. For so long, we’ve always been privy to what she does and what people tell her to an extent, so it was fun to winder what she was up to, and why she wasn’t telling anyone.

Reading the series in its entirety has been fun, and now, I have completed filling in the gaps with what I haven’t read so far. The eighteenth book shows how a community can come together, even when things are a bit shaky, and what it means to be part of something important. It’s a wonderful example of how kids can work on something big and make it happen, how we can work together to make these things happen, and what it means to care for others.

As well as the festival, there is something going on with Jacinta’s family that other people can see, and where hints are dropped throughout that seem innocuous and innocent at first, yet feel like they are leading to something big. Something that could explain a lot about Jacinta, and what she was like when we first met her all the way at the start of the series. It’s compelling, as is every aspect of this book and the rest of the series. Now, I want to at least re-read the last three books and see where everything aligns in those. It’s been quite the journey, and one that has been an achievement as well, getting them read in between everything else I do like reviewing and things like that, so I am pleased that I have managed to get to the end of what I hadn’t read. A full wrap up post will be up soon.