The Unicorn Quest, by Kamilla Benko, is a book that will no doubt find its way onto the bookshelf of readers who have an over-active imagination and like to get lost in a magical world. The story uses the tested and tried method of a portal — an old chimney in this case — opening into a magical world where outsiders who venture, get lost.

The story about sisterhood, fantasy and adventure, follows sisters Claire and Sophie as they move into their great aunt’s old manor after her death. While exploring this quaint place with lots of antique and odd things, they stumble upon the entrance into a magical world, Arden, through an old chimney.

Claire, the cautious one, doesn’t want to have anything to do with this new place and steps back, but fate had other plans. Soon Sophie disappears and Claire is sure she will find her in Arden, and to search for her sister, she has to venture into the magical world. But once there, Claire realises that much danger lurking in every enchanting corner of Arden than she imagined and she needs to use all her wits to save Sophie and also herself.

Arden, a once happy magical wonderland, is now in turmoil as all the unicorns in it have disappeared and its four guilds, that’s holding harmony of the place, don’t get along and unless they can work together with trust and faith, Arden is going to end up in chaos.

There are many magical creatures in the story, some very interesting characters but most of them have been briefly introduced, probably because this is the first book in the series and the author has other plans for them in the future stories.

What I found a bit disappointing was that the action doesn’t show the sisters together majority of the time and it almost felt like the story of a solo character.

I also found the story rushing towards the end, with lots of twists and turns, which is a good way to capture the minds of young readers, but it doesn’t match the pace of the beginning.

The Unicorn Quest introduced a decent setting for a fantasy series for middle school readers, with a nail-biting first book, let’s see how the author takes it from here.

Published in Dawn, Young World, June 1st, 2019