This has some good moments, but it never really gripped me. I returned it without finishing it, and I don't really have a desire to ever finish it.

I have no idea what reader this is meant for. It has strange goth themes of death and decay that I would not peg as for younger middle-grade readers and is fairly long and complex, but the writing is very simplistic and of the tell-not-show style that usually appeals to those younger kids.

I also couldn't figure out the main character - she's kind of dumb and very much "not like the other girls" (or, well, somehow despite growing up for 12 years with a gruesome take on the Addams Family and knowing nothing else, she is the bright ray of sunshine that doesn't fit in), but doesn't seem to be someone that younger kids could look up to either.

The plot doesn't make any sense in the first few chapters and so I gave up at the end of Part 1. I couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to go further, so I took the big blank "Part 2 Agromond Forest" on page 89 as my cue to leave. The book is about 450 pages long, and it seems to me the only way to fill that out is for more plot obstacles and lack of thinking from the main character.

Honestly, I only picked up the book in the first place because it has a similar title to another book I was searching for in the library database, and i decided that was as good a reason as any to borrow them both. Unfortunately, both books are terrible. ( )

I love rats. I'll never forgive J.K. for what she did to Scabbers. My favorite character in Angie Sage's Septimus Heap series is Stanley the Message Rat. So The Flame in the Mist should have been a natural for me, with its two golden rats, Noodle and Pie. But it just didn't work. There was absolutely nothing distinctive about Noodle or Pie, nothing that gave them any personality.

(And why two rats anyway? Why not just one? Why not three? There was just no difference between Noodle's and Pie's personalities that would individuate them in any way. So why precisely two of them? – aside perhaps from the significance of twins and triplets in the plot, but this doesn't seem relevant to the rats.)

Overall, this isn't a bad book, but it's obviously a first novel for this author. Much of it is trite – for example, that the best defense against Mordsprites is "positive thoughts and feelings" – and Grindstaff has a tendency to use lengthy conversation by a character rather amateurishly as a means of setting forth narrative facts. Show, don't tell!

Overall, I'm going to give this a 3***, which isn't bad but isn't all that great either. Fortunately, the author wraps everything up in one volume because I wouldn't be all that anxious to go on to a sequel or a trilogy. ( )

I felt that this book was more about the cover than anything. It was super disturbing and definitely not the most age appropriate book. There was a lot of cringing being done on my part. The book is narrated by the thirteen year old girl who doesn't tend to be the most intelligent. Overall I did not find much enjoyment in this book and would not use it in a classroom.

Jemma grew up as part of the Agromond family, but just hours before her thirteenth birthday, she discovers that she was raised by them for a dark and deadly purpose. Jemma has magical powers, more than she ever realized, and the Agromonds intend to steal them in order to help bolster their own strength, which they use to cloak the land in mist and exert their influence over all of the land's inhabitants. Unless Jemma wants to be part of their dark sorcery, she must flee the castle and seek out her true family. Of course, the Agromonds will not let her go so easily. Can Jemma escape the castle, find her family, and awaken her powers in time to save the kingdom?

I wanted this to be a better story than it was. The cover is eye-catching and the premise is sound, but the writing and characterization don't live up to the book's potential. Jemma makes her way through the story mostly by chance, overhearing key conversations and being rescued multiple times by the few people and creatures in the land who oppose the Agromonds' rule. And she has a magical book that will give her any information she might need, though she is oddly hesitant to use it. The author also over-used anagrams as a puzzle element, in my opinion. Jemma's adventures are unrelentingly dark and gristly; I was exhausted (and often repulsed) just reading about them, but despite the constant adventure and danger, the book dragged along for me. There are probably readers out there who will enjoy this mixture of fantasy and horror, but I don't particularly recommend it unless you are willing to overlook the mediocre writing. ( )