Review by Cleo Scott Huggins
The Curse in the Candlelight
Scarlet And Ivy : Book 5
By Sophie Cleverly
HarperCollins
ISBN: 9780008218300, 1 January 2018, 368pg, Paperback
The Curse In The Candle Light by Sophie Cleverly, is the fifth book in the Scarlet and Ivy series and is the scariest book of the series. I would highly recommend this book for girls aged 11-14. Scarlet is a brave teenager who is not afraid to express her opinion to others. Ivy, Scarlet’s twin sister, is a little less brave. Despite this, Ivy enjoys being with her sister but is fully aware of what she should and should not do.
In The Curse In The Candle Light, the twins continue to get into trouble at Rookwood Boarding School. The girls are on their last warning before expulsion. This however, doesn’t stop them from breaking the rules for their friend. When a new girl starts at Rookwood School, the twins knew they were going to have a bad year. This doesn’t bode well for rule keeping!
Ariadne, the twin’s best friend, is highly intelligent, but to get good grades she needs her sleep. Muriel is new at Rookwood, but has known Ariadne for many years, having bullied Ariadne at their previous school. Muriel claims to have had a change of heart and wants to redeem herself to Ariadne. But, Muriel’s late-night games with Ariadne prevents Ariadne from getting the sleep she needs, and the grades she needs. Meanwhile, Ebony decides to join forces with Muriel in order to get what she wants – Ebony misses the theatre, her travels and her father, and will do anything to return to her previous lifestyle.
Through the changing of friendships and leaderships, Ebony soon calls all the shots and organises a party celebrating All Hallows Eve. At this party a truth is revealed and now Muriel has the upper hand, leading to a tight situation for the other girls. This situation involves breaking out of a cage, breaking a door and confronting enemies. In the end people did get expelled, but the truth was confirmed.
Sophie Cleverly describes the settings in this book beautifully, with lots of detail. There are a lot of secrets that are kept and revealed in this book. The moral of this story is that you should not hide secrets. But, the characters still did!
I enjoyed this book because it was scary and intriguing, which kept me reading. It was for this reason that the book reminded me of the Harry Potter series.
While I enjoyed this book, I thought that it went overboard with detail on occasions – I just wanted to get back to the action!
About the reviewer: Cleo was Commended in the 2019 Hunter Writers’ Centre/Compulsive Reader Review competition. She is in Grade 6 and her favourite subjects are novel study, reading groups and writing. Cleo has participated in the Premier’s Reading Challenge since she started school. Cleo plays as the Goal Shooter and Goal Attack in her local netball team, which she loves. Cleo’s dream is to have a dog and her goals for the future are to complete high school with great grades and to start her own business.