Skandar and the Unicorn Thief is the first book in a middle grade fantasy series by A.F. Steadman. Released 3rd May 2022 by Simon & Schuster on their Young Readers imprint, it's 448 pages and is available in hardcover, paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.
This is an engaging and well written series starter for middle grade readers (Lexile measure 830L). The characters are well rendered, and there's plenty of action to move things along. Young Skandar has always wanted to see wild unicorns, but events conspire against him becoming a unicorn rider until he's recruited by a mysterious stranger to save their world.
It's a "chosen one" trope, but well done and an exciting top notch adventure story.
The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 11 hours 57 minutes and is capably read by David Dawson. He has a well modulated professionally trained voice and does a good job of seamlessly hopping through a number of disparate accents of both sexes and a wide range of ages. Sound and production quality are high throughout the read.
Four stars. It would be a good choice for public or school library, home use, or, with 4 books extant in the series (and a 5th coming out), a good binge/buddy read or book club project.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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