3 Review(s)

Aveline Beetle, a magical but hesitantly magical teenage witch, is suddenly sent away by her mum, Lydia, from Choquel Castle on the secret Island of Normandy, which is a safe haven for witches and wizards, and not known to Ordinaries, a.k.a nonmagical peeps. Aveline can’t imagine why her mum would be sending her sooo far away to stay with her quirky little Aunt Hildy in the tiny, teeny town of Farsworth, Wisconsin for an entire summer on her own, and without having ever even visited there before. It’s decided that Aveline will be landing by way of a flying retro red Schwinn, as suggested by Aunt Hildy, as “that’s what everyone does here.” Aveline is off to a wobbly start however, when Squiggles, the hot air balloon and transportation navigator of Normandy Island, gets his directions a bit confused, and accidentally drops Aveline off at the Farsworth annual July 4th parade. And what a splash she makes among all of the Ordinaries. After being locked within Aunt Hildy’s house, fondly referred to as the Bell—for days on end—by direction of Aveline’s mum and her Aunt Hildy, Aveline discovers that many of the answers to why she was sent there lie within the rooms of the house inside the Bell, which aren’t really regular rooms at all.