This was a very enjoyable children’s book. Pepper is a great character. I love that she’s a gnome. It means that she doesn’t have magic herself other than her ability to calm and sometimes communicate with animals. Her family has friends all along the spectrum of characters: witches, warlock, werewolves, other gnomes, etc. She’s also not your typical tall, athletic heroine. She’s short, stout, and doesn’t fret over her looks. That’s my kind of hero!

There’s plenty of animals in this story as well. King Arthur was a favorite, being an elderly tortoise. Each critter has its own needs, not just for their species but as individuals. It’s horrible that someone is stealing the power of these animal familiars. Pepper is key in figuring this out since the magical community is initially worried it was some virus or magical affliction.

The friendship between Pepper and Luna is a good solid one even though they come from different parts of the magical community. Luna is from a family of witches and is in training to be one herself. A witch’s powers are supposed to be kept top secret and never to be revealed outside of the witching community. However, she and Pepper have been best friends for many years and Pepper may have inadvertently learned some small things about witchcraft. That’s going to cause some complications with parents all around!

Speaking of parents, I found Mrs. Pepper to be a rather strict parent at first. Later in the story, that’s explained as part of the Gnomish culture so I was OK with it. Pepper’s dad works in a local salt mine near their town of Ithaca, NY. He’s vital in keeping the mine running smoothly even if the non-magical folk have no idea of his importance. Pepper’s older brother Jax was also a favorite character. At first, he was just an annoying older brother but he plays a bigger role later one.

The mystery of the stolen familiar powers was pretty straight forward but our villain, once revealed, was a scary and potentially deadly foe. The ending is full of action and suspense as Pepper and companions have to outwit this antagonist. I was quite satisfied by how things turned out. There’s no cliff hangers but there’s plenty of room to explore another adventure with Pepper.

The Narration: Barbara Goldie was perfect as Pepper. She has this great voice for this Gnomish kid who’s caught up in adult business. Goldie had distinct voices for all the characters and her male voices were believable, especially for Jax. I liked her voice for the villain as well. The pixie voice was quite well done too.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Diane Moat. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it. ( )